She stared at me for a long second, and I understood the enormous thing I was asking of her, and the enormous risk she was already taking simply by having spoken to me at all.

And then she crossed the room, and turned the lock with trembling fingers, and pulled the curtain across the narrow glass panel in the door, and came back to my bedside, pale and steady.

“You’re awake,” she said.

“Apparently,” I rasped.

She glanced up at the ceiling.

“Cameras?” “Not in patient rooms,” I told her.

“You’re sure?” “I own part of the hospital network.” Her eyebrows lifted, and despite the pain in my ribs, I nearly smiled again.

“That explains the private elevator,” she said.