Page 102 of Wistful Whispers

Her fingers thread through mine like she’s never letting go.

We head down the stairs, into the future and whatever comes next.

Hope doesn’t shout. It settles.

Certain. Steady.

Mine.

thirty-one

Marcella

Two Weeks Later

Thepinghitsmyphone midafternoon.

Carlos finally has something.

I should feel relief.

All I feel is dread.

I’m at my desk, with a half-drained coffee and three legal pads fanned out with notes from a deposition prep I’m supposed to be working on for a different case. I haven’t touched them.

My inbox is a dumpster fire. My phone’s at nine percent. My shoulders ache from being hunched over for hours.

None of this matters if Carlos has something useful.

Carlos Soladat: Got something. You’re not gonna like it.

I click the attachment without hesitation. It’s a brief report, maybe two pages. Nothing formal, the type of summary we usually trade back and forth when a case is too hot for paper trails.

Except this isn’t a case. Not officially.

There are five names. All women who work or worked at the hospital. All with a brief note next to them:

Willing to provide testimony

Coerced to the stairwell

Willing to provide testimony

Used her and threw her in the trash

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