Page 80 of Laura

“I hope to God they don’t do that again,” I said.

She left me, and I did my thing, feeling worse by the second, but I wasn’t going to tell anyone that.

When I came out, the doctor, a resident who looked like he was about fifteen years old, had just come in the room.

“You want to go home, I hear.”

“I want to go home.”

“Do you live with your dad?” he asked, nodding toward Will.

“No. Dr. Peterson is my boyfriend, if you must know. And he’ll take care of me.”

“My apologies, sir,” the doctor said, flushing.

“None needed. If you date someone half your age, you’re going to get comments. And I look older than I am because of the hair. I need to get a T-shirt that says that.”

We looked at each other and laughed again.

“Please, discharge me. I can’t stand this another second.”

“I’ll write the orders. Take it easy for a week. Don’t drive until your headache goes away.”

I thought of my interview with Jake Stevens. I was still going.

After another delay, finally, at three that afternoon, they discharged me. Will arranged for a driving service to bring my car back to Babylon, and I’d go home with him. We held hands the whole way, not talking much, but I could tell Will was holding back, that something had upset him.

“Are you worried about me?” I asked.

“Yes, of course.”

“I’m fine, as you can see.”

“I wish I could stay home with you, but I’ve got such a backlog that if word got out, the state would converge for an inspection.”

“I’ll be fine, Will.”

“Can you stay at your stepmother’s house tomorrow? You’re not supposed to be alone.”

“How about if I ask her to drop in?”

He glanced at me with a frown but didn’t say more about it. “Tell me about Ryan. He was your co-host on the show, right?”

Ugh. So, there was something, and it was Ryan. “What do you want to know about him?”

“Well, you told me you never had a boyfriend.”

“This is true.”

“What was the girl code the baby’s mother referred to?”

“Ryan and I avoided each other for six months on the set, and then after we finished taping, we thought we’d try it. On the second date, we took a walk after dinner, and that detective you met today, Mark Spinoza, stopped us on the street to talk to me about the baby kidnapping. He recognized Ryan because he’d arrested him for rape a few months before, but the charges had been dropped.

“Ryan thought I had set up the meeting on the street like that to humiliate him, so he stormed off, and that was the end of our attempt at romance. But during the two days we were together, my father picked Eimy, the baby’s mother, to go on an Adventure Trek, and that put her and Ryan together. It’s fine. He’s in love with Pam’s daughter, who is also his half-sister, so I’m guessing the new romance will only last until Eimy finds that tidbit out.”

Will tried to hide the smirk on his face. “So, what you’re saying is there are lots of half-sisters and brothers and stepsisters and brothers and stepmothers and fathers in your family.”

“Well, not exactly. Both stepfathers are dead. Jack and my dad, Randy. And I’m the only stepsister. There are three half-siblings in there.”

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