The forty-third floor was silent at ten o’clock, and the night cleaning crew pulled their gray maintenance carts out of our way.

I pressed the black cell phone hard against my ear as we got to the elevator lobby.

“Nurse Foster, I’m ten minutes out,” I said into the phone.

“Tell Dr.

Miller I’ll authorize a two-thousand-dollar emergency admission deposit the second I walk in the door.”

“Mr.

Moretti, there’s one more medical detail you need to hear before you get in your car,” Nurse Foster said, her professional voice keeping a careful distance over the line.

I stopped short three feet from the brass elevator doors.