Page 116 of I Will Find You

“So she thinks—”

“She thinks it’s only going to be me. We’re supposed to meet in her office.”

“How much longer?”

“Half an hour,” Rachel says, and we fall into silence.

Chapter

32

Rachel parks in the visitor lot at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, New Jersey. We both don surgical masks. Since Covid, no one thinks twice about seeing someone with a mask, especially near a hospital. Again, it’s a pretty effective disguise.

We start toward the front entrance.

“How long has Cheryl been working here?” I ask.

“Three years. They have a good kidney transplant program.”

“But Cheryl loved working at Boston General.”

“She did,” Rachel agrees. “But staying became untenable after your conviction. The hospital called her a”—Rachel made quote marks with her fingers—“distraction.”

I stare up into the sky.

“One more thing,” Rachel says. “She goes by Dr. Cheryl Dreason now.”

Another pang. “She took Ronald’s name too?”

“It gave her more anonymity.”

“That was really clever of her,” I say.

“Seriously?”

I make a face.

“She lost everything too.”

New husband, fresh pregnancy, still doing the transplant surgery she loves—Rachel’s words don’t seem quite accurate, but it feels ungenerous to say so.

We move inside. Rachel heads to the desk and grabs us visitors passes. We take the elevator to the fourth floor and follow the signs reading RENAL AND PANCREAS TRANSPLANT. Rachel pulls down the mask and waves to the receptionist.

“Hey, Betsy.”

“Hey, Rachel. She’s waiting for you in her office.”

Rachel smiles one more time and then pulls the mask back up. I keep walking by her side, as though this is routine and I know where I’m going. My pulse starts picking up speed. My breath shallows.

I am mere yards away from Cheryl—my ex-wife, the mother of my child, the only woman I ever loved.

I feel myself start to well up. It is one thing to think or imagine this moment. But now that it’s here…

Rachel stops short. “Shit.”

Cops, I figure in the millisecond before I see that no, she isn’t talking about anyone in law enforcement. She’s talking about Ronald Dreason, Cheryl’s new husband. I know Ronald, of course. He was an administrator at Boston General who was always “looking out” for Cheryl. You know what I mean. He just wanted to be her “friend” and it was obvious to me and everyone else, including Ronald’s wife—who, to be somewhat fair, he was separated from at the time—that was bullshit. Naturally I wasn’t happy with the constant “work” texts because, again, obvious. Cheryl laughed them off.

“Okay, yeah, Ronald probably does have a little crush on me,” Cheryl would say. “But it’s harmless.”

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