Page 176 of Bad Blood

“I considered that—”

“But you’re gonna tell me that didn’t happen, right?”

“There is no error.” Kline skims his tongue along his bottom teeth, nodding for the nurse to proceed.

She focuses her attention on Liam, taking a couple of vials of blood while I turn my attention to Kline.

“This will be our confirmation,” he says.

My dislike for him evaporates. He’s doing another test to make sure, even though he doesn’t think it’s a possibility.

The nurse talks to Liam in a hushed tone, distracting him from the blood draw, and places a cotton ball and tape over it before turning her attention to me. She goes about her work without interrupting Kline.

“Liam’s going to finish out chemo. We’ll let him rest a couple of days and get him back in here for surgery to remove the tumor from his hip. I want to start radiation a week or two after surgery. We want to shrink the size of the masses we found in his lungs.”

“You’re going to feel a small prick,” the nurse says. I offer her my arm, and she smiles as she taps at the crook of my elbow in search of a vein.

“And what’s after radiation?” I concentrate on the words coming from his mouth, disregarding the pinching feeling in my arm.

Liam’s stayed silent for most of this, and I glance over to find him staring, a new level of worry and confusion on his face. Is it for me? The situation? Or that maybe Kline’s not as bad as we were led to believe?

“We wait.” Kline leans against the counter behind him, crossing his arms over his chest. “Do you have any questions?”

“I think you covered everything.” I recoil, averting my gaze to the tubes as she takes them from the counter. First, she grabs the tube with the light purple top, then a yellow one. It takes longer to fill. I stare at the full tube she sets on the counter. That’s a lot of blood. Heat rushes up my neck, and I close my eyes, trying not to think about my heart beating the blood from my body into the tubes.

I don’t realize Phillip has come into the room until the nurse tears the tape, and I open my eyes. Phillip passes Liam a cup of ice before joining Kline at the counter. I don’t get so much as a smile.

“You okay? Need some water?” She places a cotton ball in the crook of my arm. “You look a little pale. Hold this for a sec.”

I obey, trying to get the cloudy sensation in my head to go away and watch Kline and Phillip discuss something I can’t hear as they point at my chart.

The nurse tears off a section of tape and presses it over the cotton, smiles, and stuffs the blood-filled tubes into her caddy.

“We’ll get these to the lab and get with you to schedule the harvesting. I’d give it a day or so,” she says, patting the back of my hand. At least someone still thinks there’s a possibility I can help Liam.

I nod, thoughts still fuzzy as they swim in my mind. The weight of the results pulls at my chest, making it difficult to breathe.

She pulls open the curtain, letting herself out as Kline and Phillip turn to face us, my file spread open.

“We’re going to get this figured out. Phillip knows the girl I mentioned,” Kline says, his head tucked in the chart as he continues to scribble notes.

Phillip confirms what Kline says before he taps Liam on the leg. “I’ll be back in ten.”

Kline hands him the file, and he tucks it under his arm before pulling the curtain back and exiting.

“He said she’s been in and out of here a lot lately. There’s a chance she messed something up, but we’ll know in a few hours.”

Would the Kline Brighton described go to these kinds of lengths? How would another test benefit him if he was lying about it in the first place? And what difference does it make to him if we’re not brothers?

I only have the information she’s given me. The few things I’ve seen on the news. And the things I tick off in my head.

They’re named in the malpractice—together.

She wants to clear her name.

There’s the list that doesn’t seem like a coincidence.

The murders.

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