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By the time Hope unlocked the front door of MEND, Maura had received three messages from Jane and one from Angela. Jane’s first asked whether she was still coming, the second informed her that Korsak had somehow acquired a lie detector, and the third said Frankie looked guilty enough to confess before anyone connected him to the machine. Angela’s message was more practical: Don’t let Jane order for you. She thinks French fries count as a vegetable.
Maura smiled as she put the phone back into her purse. She had left the house expecting to spend the evening with all of them, which explained the dress beneath her coat and the shoes Hope had already looked at twice with mild concern. An after-hours tour of a medical clinic had never been part of the plan. Then Hope had arrived with the pamphlet, and Maura had seen the nervous way she held it out, already prepared to be told that she was pushing too hard.
“You can answer her,” Hope said as she reached for the lights. “I don’t mind.”
“I already did.”
“And she sent two more messages.”
“Jane considers most answers an invitation to ask follow-up questions.”
Hope laughed softly. “I remember.”
The lights came on one section at a time, revealing a reception area that felt warmer than most clinics Maura had visited. There were chairs grouped together rather than lined against a wall, children’s drawings framed beside photographs from MEND’s outreach programs, and several large plants that appeared healthy enough to suggest somebody took personal responsibility for them. Hope moved through the space with an ease Maura had rarely seen from her. At the hospital, she had seemed uncertain about how close to sit or whether she should touch Maura’s hand. Here, she knew exactly where she belonged.
“We wanted people to feel welcome before they ever spoke to a doctor,” Hope explained, leading her toward the first hallway. “A lot of our patients arrive after spending months in hospitals. By the time they reach us, they’ve had enough of fluorescent lights and furniture that looks like it can be disinfected with a hose.”
“That is a highly specific description.”
“It’s also very helpful.”
Maura followed her into a small consultation room. Hope showed her the adjustable examination table, the video equipment they used to connect with specialists in other countries and the cabinet where they kept information for patients recovering from major procedures. Her excitement surfaced gradually as she spoke, especially when Maura began asking questions about staffing and long-term care. The pamphlet had made the volunteer program sound useful. Hearing Hope explain it made the work feel personal.
“We also meet with families here,” Hope said, resting one hand on the back of a chair. “Spouses, parents, whoever will be helping once the patient goes home. Sometimes they need more preparation than the patient does.”
“Jane would keep you here for hours.”
The response came so naturally that Maura had already turned toward the cabinet before she noticed Hope’s expression.
“I imagine she would,” Hope said.
Maura looked back. “She tends to ask questions that have already been answered.”
“Several times.”
There it was again: the small smile Hope had worn at the hospital. Maura had noticed it then, although the medication had made every thought feel a few seconds behind the moment that produced it. She remembered the headache and the relief of finding that the names of bones still came when she searched for them. Hope had tested her levator anguli oris, and Maura had described the muscles precisely enough to earn a textbook-perfect smile. Then, while adjusting something beside the bed, Hope had mentioned Jane.
Jane has been calling every twenty minutes.
At the time, Maura had accepted the information as another sign that the world outside the recovery room had continued in her absence. Jane was working a murder investigation and still finding time to call the hospital with a regularity that bordered on scheduling. Of course she was. Jane responded to fear by gathering information, making demands and becoming irritated with anyone who suggested she wait patiently. Maura had smiled because the behavior was familiar and because knowing Jane was somewhere nearby, bothering people on her behalf, had made the room feel less strange.
Hope had watched her smile.
“Did she truly call every twenty minutes?” Maura asked.
Hope’s eyebrows lifted. “I told you she did.”
“I was still experiencing the effects of anesthesia. Some details were less reliable than others.”
“She was very punctual. I think the longest interval was twenty-three minutes, and that was only because your surgeon spoke to us.”
“What did she ask?”
“The first time, she wanted to know whether the surgery had started. The second time, she asked whether anyone had given me an updated estimate. Then she wanted to know if there had been complications, whether the surgeon was still in the operating room, when you would be moved to recovery…” Hope paused, remembering. “By the fourth call, she stopped apologizing for calling.”
“That sounds like Jane.”
“She sounded frightened.”
The word sat between them, simple enough that Maura could not find anything to correct in it.
“Jane worries,” she said.
“I know.”
“She is particularly uncomfortable when there is nothing she can do.”
“I know that too.”
Hope’s answer held a certainty that made Maura wonder how much Jane had revealed without meaning to. She had probably spoken too quickly, demanded more information than Hope could provide and forgotten that she was talking to someone who had spent years reading fear in relatives who believed they were hiding it well.
Hope glanced down at the chair beneath her hand. “Watching the two of you at the hospital reminded me how good you are together.”
“We are. She’s the best detective I’ve worked with.”
Hope looked up, and Maura saw the moment she chose her next words carefully. “That isn’t quite what I meant.”
“Oh.”
It was an inadequate response, although Maura could not immediately improve upon it. Hope waited without rescuing her from the silence, which gave Maura enough time to understand that several of the looks she had noticed throughout the day had probably carried the same assumption.
“Jane and I aren’t romantically involved,” she said at last. “We’re best friends.”
“All right.”
Hope accepted the correction and opened the door to the hallway. Maura followed, expecting a question that never came. They passed two closed offices before she realized Hope had already resumed the tour.
“That’s all you’re going to say?”
Hope glanced over her shoulder. “Would you like me to say something else?”
“No. I only thought you might ask why.”
“Why you aren’t together?”
"Why did you assume that we were?"
“Remember the first time we met? Her and Angela were there, and she seemed so comfortable in your house. Also, there’s the way she has always defended you, even to me. And today…” Hope paused, seeming to consider how much she should say. “I saw the two of you before your surgery. Then she called every twenty minutes until you were out. It seemed like a reasonable conclusion.”
“Jane has always been like that with me."
“I know.”
“She also considers my medical knowledge irrelevant whenever I’m the patient.”
Hope smiled. “I noticed that when she asked me to confirm everything you had already explained.”
“She means well.”
“I know she does.”
Maura was beginning to feel as though she were arguing with Hope, although Hope had agreed with everything she said. She slipped her hands into the pockets of her coat and followed her into a room used for physical therapy consultations. Resistance bands hung in careful rows along one wall, and Hope explained how volunteers helped patients adjust their routines after surgery. Maura listened and asked the appropriate questions, though part of her attention remained in the hallway behind them.
Jane had been part of her life for so long that Maura rarely had to explain her place in it. They worked together, spent most of their free time together, and Jane’s family had adopted Maura with such determination that protesting would have been both useless and unkind. Maura had always understood those things as parts of the same friendship. Hope had put them together and seen something else.
“Is Jane staying with you while you’re recovering?” Hope asked as she adjusted one of the resistance bands hanging from the wall.
“Angela is staying in the guest house. Jane has work.”
Hope’s mouth curved slightly. “I asked about Jane.”
“She’s been coming by.”
“Frequently?”
“Frequently,” Maura conceded.
“She has a key, doesn’t she?”
“For emergencies.”
Hope glanced at her. “Only emergencies?”
Maura thought of all the times Jane had let herself in hungry, bored, holding a bottle of wine, or convinced Maura had ignored one message too many. “Jane has a broad definition of emergency.”
Hope laughed, and Maura found herself joining her. The conversation felt lighter after that, though Hope’s original assumption had not entirely left the room.
“I’m sorry,” Hope said once their laughter faded. “I wasn’t trying to pry.”
“You can ask me things.”
Hope went still for a moment. “Can I?”
“Within reason.”
“I suppose that rules out asking for a detailed history of everyone you’ve ever dated.”
“That would take less time than you seem to imagine.”
Hope’s smile returned. “We’ll save that for another day.”
The ease of the exchange surprised Maura more than Hope’s assumption had. That morning, they had still been discussing how difficult it was to fit themselves into the idea of mother and daughter. Hope had spent years imagining scraped knees and first days of school, while Maura had grown up with Constance standing beside her for all of them. They could never recover those missing years by pretending the loss had not happened. They could begin here, though, in an empty clinic after hours, with Hope asking questions most mothers learned the answers to gradually.
“What do you usually order at the Dirty Robber?” Hope asked as they entered a small teaching kitchen.
“Pinot noir.”
“I was going to guess wine.”
“That was statistically safe.”
“And food?”
Maura thought about it. “It depends on whether Jane has already ordered.”
Hope turned from the counter. “Does she often order for you?”
“She claims I take too long to decide.”
“Does she know what you want?”
“Usually.”
Hope nodded, as though this answer belonged with all the others.
“She gets it wrong occasionally,” Maura added.
“How occasionally?”
“Once she ordered a turkey burger without asking.”
“That sounds serious.”
“It had American cheese.”
“I’m surprised the friendship survived.”
“It was difficult.”
They moved through the rest of the clinic that way. Hope showed her the rooms where volunteers ran support groups, and Maura learned that Hope disliked coffee from machines and loved music from the seventies. Hope learned that Maura still played the piano when she could not sleep and that she preferred tea in the mornings despite Jane’s ongoing campaign to convince her that coffee was more efficient. The details were ordinary, which seemed to make them more valuable to Hope. She listened to every answer with the same attention she had given Maura’s fears about her memory earlier that day.
Near the end of the hallway, Hope stopped in front of a wall covered in photographs of volunteers. “I hope you don’t think I brought the pamphlet because I expect you to leave the medical examiner’s office.”
“I know you don’t.”
“I would like you here, though. Even for a few hours.”
“I’d like that too.”
Hope turned toward her. “You would?”
“I haven’t agreed to anything yet.”
“Of course.”
“But I would like to come back.”
Hope’s face softened, and Maura understood why asking for the tour had mattered so much. The clinic belonged to Hope in a way few things did. Allowing Maura to see it meant allowing her into a part of her life that had existed long before either of them knew how to speak to each other.
“You could come to the Dirty Robber with us sometime,” Maura said.
Hope seemed genuinely surprised. “Are you sure?”
“Jane will probably ask you several questions about my surgery.”
“She already has.”
“Then you’ll have something to discuss.”
“I’d like that.”
They returned to reception, where Maura checked her phone. Jane had sent another message: Are you alive?
Maura typed back while Hope retrieved her purse from behind the desk: Leaving now. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.
Hope read Maura’s expression rather than the message. “Twenty minutes?”
Maura looked up. “The drive usually takes eighteen.”
“I’m sure that’s why you chose it.”
“Coincidences occur more frequently than people realize.”
Hope switched off the last of the lights, still smiling.
They reached the Dirty Robber twenty-one minutes later. Jane was standing outside with her phone in one hand, scanning the street with the intensity she usually reserved for witnesses trying to leave a crime scene. She spotted Hope’s car before Maura had unfastened her seat belt and crossed the sidewalk while Hope pulled in near the curb.
“You’re late,” Jane said as soon as Maura opened the door.
“By approximately one minute.”
“I wasn’t timing you.”
“You’re holding your phone.”
“I was checking the score.”
“There isn’t a game tonight.”
Jane frowned. “How’s your head?”
“It’s fine.”
“That’s what you said before brain surgery.”
“I didn’t have a headache before the surgery.”
“That’s not the point.”
Hope leaned across the center console, looking between them with an expression Maura now understood far too well. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“After nine,” Maura reminded her.
“After nine.”
Maura hesitated before leaning back into the car and hugging her. The movement was still new enough to require thought, though Hope’s arms came around her without any uncertainty. When they separated, Hope touched Maura’s cheek briefly and told her to enjoy the rest of her evening.
Jane waited until the car had moved away before placing one hand against Maura’s elbow and guiding her toward the entrance. “Did you have fun?”
“I did. MEND is impressive.”
“Good. I’m glad you went.” Jane glanced at her again. “You look tired.”
“I’m recovering from surgery. Fatigue is expected.”
“Yeah, well, if you start swaying, I’m carrying you home.”
“That would be medically inadvisable for both of us.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
They had almost reached the door when Maura stopped. Jane took another step before noticing and turned back, her hand still resting around Maura’s arm.
“What?”
“Hope thought we were together.”
Jane looked at the space between them and then back at Maura. “We are together.”
“Romantically.”
“Oh.”
For once, Jane seemed to have no immediate response. She released Maura’s arm, only to place the same hand in the pocket of her jacket.
“She said you called every twenty minutes while I was in surgery.”
Jane groaned. “She told you that?”
“She counted.”
“Of course she counted. She’s a doctor.”
“You’re a detective.”
“Exactly. I know when evidence is being used against me.”
“She had other evidence.”
Jane’s eyes narrowed. “What other evidence?”
“She didn’t provide a complete list.”
“Great. That’s helpful.”
“I explained that we’re best friends.”
“Okay.”
The answer came too quickly. Jane reached for the door, then stopped when Maura remained where she was.
“Is it?”
“Is what?”
“Okay.”
Jane studied her face. “Did it bother you?”
“I asked you first.”
“No, you told me what happened. That’s not the same as asking a question.”
“Would it bother you if someone believed we were romantically involved?”
Jane looked toward the window, where Frankie was waving both hands while Korsak appeared to be trying to fasten something around his arm. Nobody inside seemed to have noticed them yet.
“No,” she said. Her voice had lost its teasing edge. “It wouldn’t bother me.”
Maura felt herself smile. “Good.”
Jane looked back at her. “Good?”
Before Maura could answer, the door opened and Angela leaned outside.
“There you are! Frankie finally admitted he and Nina are dating. Are you two coming inside, or are you planning to spend the whole night standing on the sidewalk?”
“We’re coming,” Jane said. She waited until Angela disappeared before looking at Maura again. “You know this conversation isn’t over.”
“I assumed it wasn’t.”
“Good.” Jane opened the door and placed her hand against Maura’s back as they stepped toward the warmth and noise of the bar. “I saved you a seat.”
“Beside you?”
Jane gave her a look that made the question seem ridiculous.
“Where else?”