Offering a wan smile to a receptionist who seemed absolutely uninterested in receiving anyone, Jo wrote her name on the lined sheet that read “Sign In Here” and then gratefully sank into a plastic chair directly under the TV. There were two other people stationed at quarantine-like quadrants around the waiting area, as if no one was sure who had what communicable disease, and therefore, nobody was taking any chances catching something they didn’t already have.

She closed her eyes and breathed through her nose. When that did nothing to quell the rolling swells atop the bilious green sea in her stomach, she tried cracking her lips and redirecting her inhales and exhales through that route.

“Ms. Early?” the receptionist said some time later.

After checking in with her driver’s license and her insurance card, it was back to waiting, and then she was finally in a room. The male nurse who took her weight, her vitals, and her temperature seemed nice enough, and she prayed she didn’t throw up on him.

“So,” he said as he entered her blood pressure into her electronic chart, “tell me a little about what’s been going on.”

“Is my blood pressure, okay?”

“It’s on the low side. But your oxygen stats are great and your pulse is fine. You’re running a low-grade fever, though.”

“So I’m sick.”

He stopped typing into the computer and faced her. He was probably thirty, and he had a good haircut, a precisely trimmed beard, and eyes that were not anywhere near as tired as she felt.

“What have your symptoms been?” he asked.

“I’ve been feeling sick. Fatigued. Headachy.”

“Hmm . . .” He went back to typing. “There’s a lot of that going around. Flu season is heartier than usual this year, it seems. So how long has this been going on?”

“Three months. Maybe four.”

He stopped again and looked over at her with a frown. “Since November, then?”

“I mean, I’m sure I’m fine.” Which, of course, was exactly why she was sitting in this exam room, telling herself not to barf on the guy’s white uniform. She was just GREAT. “Really.”

“Okay.” He typed some more. “Anything else?”

“I haven’t been losing weight, though. Kind of a bummer, really.”

“So you’ve always been . . .” He scrolled up and read a number.

“That’s what I weigh now?” When he looked at her again, she waved her hand like she could erase the question. “I mean, it’s fine. I’ve lost a little weight, but it’s no big deal.”

“How much did you lose?”

“Ten pounds. Fifteen at the most. I’m tall, though.”

Okay, for all the sense she’d made while drafting the online article on that decapitated body on the fire escape, she had now apparently lost her ability to think. Because she was making no damned sense.

Unless she’d also made no sense with the article and just hadn’t known it.

“I’m sorry, but I think I’ve wasted your time.” She made like she was going to slide off the examination table. “I’m fine—”

The nurse put his hand out like a crossing guard’s stop sign. “Take a deep breath.”

Figuring it was medical advice—and also a good idea—Jo followed directions. Twice.

“Okay.” He smiled, but she wasn’t fooled. That was not the casual one he’d given her as he’d wrapped her biceps in a cuff or shoved a thermometer in her mouth. “Good. Why don’t you talk to the doctor when she comes in, okay? Dr. Perez is really easy to speak to. Just tell her what’s been going on. Maybe it’s nothing, but she’ll be able to think the symptoms through with you and give you some options about further diagnostics if she believes it’s warranted. Sound good?”

Jo nodded because she felt like a fool. And because she was suddenly very terrified.

She’d been thinking about going to a see a doctor for a good month and a half, maybe two months. And she’d decided to finally follow up on the impulse largely to give herself something to do as she waited for McCordle to check in again. Anything was better than sitting in that empty newsroom with Dick steaming pissed at her behind the closed door of his office—

Oh, who was she kidding. Someone she didn’t know had spoken her biggest fear out loud to her last night. And she was here to find out if she was dying.

As if that man in leather was a fortune-teller.

“Have you been under a lot of stress lately?” the nurse asked.

“I accused my boss of a pattern of sexual harassment about a half hour ago.”

The nurse whistled under his breath. “That counts. And I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“And last night, I saw my first dead body.” As his eyes bugged, she figured she’d keep the head-as-bowling-ball stuff to herself. “And I’m working on my first big story as a reporter—now that you mention it, things have been a little intense.”

All of that was child’s play, though. That man she’d run from the police with? Who she’d kissed in that abandoned restaurant? He was the real stressor, the first-in-line. Which considering the list of stuff he’d beaten for that coveted pole position was really saying something.

Jo took a deep breath again—but this time, she relaxed some as she exhaled. “You’re right. This is all probably stress.”

The nurse smiled again, and she was relieved that the Medical Professional Expression was not on his face anymore.

“I’ll send Dr. Perez in as soon as she’s done with her current patient.” He extended a card from his lapel, swiped to log out of the computer, and got to his feet. “You take care now.”

“Thanks,” Jo said.

After he stepped out of the exam room, she swung her feet as they hung off the lip of the table—and remembered doing the same thing the night before in that kitchen. Stopping herself, she looked around and noted the pamphlets on depression, insomnia, and melanoma. The first two applied to her. The last one? She’d never really been into tanning, but redheads were not known for hearty skin.

There was also an anatomy chart on the far wall, the human skeleton on one side, the human muscular system on the other. The latter made her think of the skinned corpse, of those photographs that Bill had showed her.

And then she was back on the man from the night before, the one in leather, the one she should have been afraid of. She could picture him clear as day, sure as if he were in the room with her, and for some reason, the smell of his darkly spiced cologne came back to her—

As her phone went off in her purse, she snagged the thing out of the sea of Slim Jims like God was calling with the answer to a prayer. Sure enough, she didn’t recognize the number, and as she hit “accept,” her heart pounded, but not from fear. Nope. More like hope that it was that man, although that was not only impossible, it made no sense.

“Hello?” she said.

There was a pause. And then a tinny, falsely real-person’d voice said, “Hello, my name is Susan. I’m calling about your student loans—”

Stupid marketers.

Cutting the connection and cradling the cell in her palms, she found herself wishing she had memorized that man’s phone number when he’d given it to her. But where did she think dialing him up was going to get her?

Well, she knew at least one answer to that.

Focusing on the door, she saw that hard, lean face, those deep-set eyes, those wide shoulders in that leather jacket. Then she felt his lips on her mouth, the leashed power of his tremendous body, the possibility of—

A woman in a white coat opened the way into the exam room and entered with a calm smile. Her stare was direct, her manner brusque yet not cold, her attitude one of competence and kindness.

“Good morning, Ms. Early,” she said as she closed them in together. “I’m Dr. Perez.”

She didn’t go to the computer and sign in. She came over and shook hands. And even as her dark eyes were making a sweep of Jo’s face, like she had one of Bones McCoy’s scanners implanted in her head, she wasn’t impersonal about it.

“Let’s talk about what’s going on. Matthew gave me some idea, but I’d like to hear everything again from you.”

As she smiled, Jo smiled back.

Yes, Jo thought. This was the kind of person she wanted to get answers from, not some guy who was a stranger she should not trust—as if the repertoire of replies to the question “What the hell is wrong with me?” varied depending on who was supplying them.

Whatever. She was feeling better already.

“I’m really glad I came,” she said. “So, it started probably back in November . . .”

At nightfall, Syn materialized downtown without telling anyone where he was going. As he re-formed, his cell phone was vibrating like it was having a seizure, and he took the thing out so fast, he sent it sailing and had to pull a two-handed catch before the Samsung Sam-shattered all over the pavement.

Finally, his female was calling—

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Not her. But instead of letting things dump into voice mail, he answered. “Relax, I’m taking care of it.”

The old man with the cement company on the other end coughed like the carcinogens from his cigars were setting up a campground in his lungs. “What’s the fucking holdup? And I told you, you keep it quiet this time—”

Syn cut the call and contemplated throwing the phone at the building in front of him. Except then his female couldnae reach him, at least not during the dead zone between when the unit broke into a million pieces and the split second later when he got a new one. So yeah, fine. That mobster wanted that reporter dead? No problem. Syn had a fuck of a temper going on, and this was a killing-many-birds-with-one-stone situation. He could burn off his bad mood, let his talhman stretch its legs with the guy, and get that fucking human he’d used to find himself a good victim to stop calling his ass.