At a quarter to two, the private wing had gone dead quiet.

I lay still, eyes shut, body limp, breathing like a man floating past the reach of the living.

And then the heavy door clicked open.

Harrison came in first; I knew his soft rubber-soled step.

Behind him came Chloe, and I could smell her perfume, and hear the whisper of her high-collared silk.

“Is the hallway clear?” she asked, and her voice held not one drop of the grief she had performed for the cameras.

“The night staff has been rotated to the south wing,” Harrison answered, clinical and detached, and I heard the small sounds of him opening a case and preparing an injection meant to look, afterward, like a natural death.