“Yeah, come on in,” I said. “How long do you have?”

He checked his phone and grimaced. “Not long.”

He followed me up the steps, followed me as I unlocked the front door, dropping the X-rays on the entryway table, walking straight into the kitchen.

I caught him yawning when I turned around. “You need a break,” I said. We all did after this. I thought of Dr. Cal’s suggestions: to take care of myself, make sure I was getting rest and putting myself first.

“I do, and I’m planning on it,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “I’ve got so much vacation accrued, it’s ridiculous. I’m really bad at taking breaks.”

“I’ve noticed,” I said, smiling.

“Well, I’m going to take some time off. Starting this weekend. So, I’ll be around.” He grinned. We stood there in my kitchen in silence.

“Can I help with anything before I go?” he asked.

I took down a glass from the cabinet with my right arm. “You can open the bottle of wine in the fridge,” I said. I hadn’t had any since I’d finished the last bottle, the night after the bar, the night I’d found Sean Coleman. And I wanted to get back to my routine. Relax, watch TV, fall asleep, wake up tomorrow for a fresh start.

He took the fresh bottle from the inside of the fridge door. Unscrewed the top. Held the bottle to my outstretched glass, poured more than I’d typically give myself.

His mouth twitched. “I don’t know how you drink this extra-sweet screw-top wine, Liv. Seriously.” He took a step closer, and I raised my glass. I didn’t know everything about him still, and it set my pulse thrumming.

“Dare you,” I said, holding out my glass.

“I have work.” But he took a tiny sip, indulging me. His nose crinkled up, tongue out to the side. “I mean, seriously. It’s really bad.” I laughed, and he grinned. “I really do have to go.”

“Go, then,” I said. “Leave me to my wine and television.”

I saw him out, standing on the front porch, watching his headlights disappearing, dusk settling in. Nothing but the crickets, the fireflies. Darkness at Rick’s house. The single light from down the hall in the kitchen, behind me. And I felt at home, and secure, and good.

Back inside, I took the glass of wine into the living room, settling on the couch. I turned on the television, tipping the glass back.

But I gagged at the first sip, coughing as it went down. Bennett was right, it was horrible. But not in the way I’d thought he meant.

It had turned.

But it was a new bottle—I hadn’t had any yet, had stopped my nightly routine when everything spun out of control. I didn’t think I’d opened it yet, but I couldn’t be sure.

I went back to the kitchen, dumped the rest of the glass into the sink, then picked up the bottle on the counter. I couldn’t find any crack, any other way for the wine to turn bad.

It had definitely been opened, though—and I didn’t think it was by me.

My hand started shaking.

Bennett had told me the drugs that had gone missing: opioids, yes; and benzodiazepines. I knew what those could do. They could act as sedatives to calm you. Some were used for anesthesia, to lower anxiety, so you wouldn’t recall the trauma of a medical procedure. I’d had an adverse reaction to one when I was younger.

I sniffed the bottle, swirled the liquid, peering through the faintly tinted glass, wondering if this was just paranoia. I set it down carefully on the counter, took a step back, then stared out the window into the darkness.

It was possible there was nothing in my wine at all, just a bad bottle, turned on its own. Except for the timing. Each night, starting when Rick had found me. A glass of wine, the fuzzy details of the entire night, waking up outside . . . the box cutter taken.

Which meant that someone had been drugging me.

Someone had been in here.

Hand to my mouth, another step back, flipping through the possibilities:

Elyse, who had shown up at the hospital so fast I wondered how she knew I’d been there . . . She had been here with me after, had access to the drugs. She’d been out at the bar that night, too.

But so had Bennett. Bennett, who made me coffee at work. Who brought me juice, who gave me food. Bennett was in my office all the time. He could’ve taken my key, made a copy—

Stop it. Not Bennett, not Bennett, it couldn’t be Bennett.

He legitimately had not known who I was. I’d witnessed the betrayal he’d felt when he found out. Except all the questions started swirling: why he’d talked me out of looking for Elyse; why he’d had that paperwork in his car—

When would I stop seeing the darkness in everyone, the terrible possibilities? Would I ever look and not see the darker intentions of people surfacing?

It had to be Nathan. He could’ve bought the drugs from Elyse, he could’ve told her what to do. He could’ve been in here. He must’ve been, to take that box cutter. Maybe that was what he’d been doing in here all along.

Except someone else had tried to frame me for taking the medicine. That was what that paperwork implied. The paperwork that Bennett had signed off on, that someone else had reported to him.

Why me? What did she have against me?

Maybe it hadn’t been Elyse but someone else, someone who understood that an investigation was going to kick off—and was running.

Erin, who lived next door to Elyse in apartment 121, who hadn’t answered even when I’d sworn I’d heard movement inside.

According to Bennett, she had been in our lounge, on our floor, across from the medicine room. Maybe I hadn’t seen the signs in Elyse because it hadn’t been her. Maybe Elyse knew and was chased—the chaos of her apartment, like she knew someone was coming for her.

And now this woman was trying to blame it on me instead.

I just had to look her up. Pass the information on to Detective Rigby—that bottle of wine could be proof, the last thing she needed to pin Nathan Coleman, and all of this would be over. If he’d been drugging me . . . it was so much worse than I’d thought. If this Erin Mills was involved, it was another angle we could take. Another person who could point the finger at Nathan Coleman.

I’d been the only one to see the state of Elyse’s apartment. To believe that she was running from something, in a panic.

Get away from me—the thing I’d been calling out in the night. Had it been Nathan Coleman? Someone else?

I opened my work laptop. Searched for her name. The thumbnail photo from her badge, small and grainy, like they all were. Only the doctors had full bios and head shots. Everyone else had a small ID photo from their access badge, blurry when enlarged.

I could tell she had long, curly auburn hair—yes, the woman who had been in the lounge that day, whom I’d seen from behind. But now I could finally see the rest of her: a thin face, large glasses that distorted her face’s dimensions. I leaned closer, trying to get her into focus, and something prickled. A twinge of familiarity. I might’ve seen her other times in the nurses’ lounge, maybe. Or in the cafeteria. Downstairs near the gift shop.

But it was something more. It was her smile, the shape of it—the wideness. Goose bumps rose down my neck. I heard Bennett’s words again: older than us.

I shook my head, to concentrate. To keep the past from rising up and overlapping with the present.