The Sinner by Tess Gerritsen

because Louise seldom shared personal
information
about her life. Is that my fault? Maura wondered. Does she sense that I’m
not
a willing listener, that I’m more comfortable with my scalpels and
Dictaphone
than I am with the feelings of people around me?
    Together, they walked down the hall, toward the exit leading to
the
staff parking lot. No small talk, just two parallel travelers, headed toward the
same destination.
    Louise’s husband was waiting in his car, its windshield
wipers
swinging furiously against the falling sleet. Maura gave a goodbye wave as
Louise
and her husband drove off, and got a puzzled look from Vernon, who probably
wondered
who that woman was, waving as though she knew them.
    As though she really knew anyone.
    She crossed the parking lot, slipping on the glazed blacktop, her
head
bent under stinging pellets of sleet. She had one more stop to make. One more
duty
to execute before her day was over.
    She drove to St. Francis Hospital to check on the status of Sister
Ursula.
    Although she had not worked in a hospital ward since her
internship
years ago, the memories of her final rotation in the intensive care unit
remained
vividly unpleasant. She remembered moments of panic, the struggle to think
through
the fog of sleep deprivation. She remembered a night when three patients had
died
on her shift, and everything had gone wrong at once. She could not walk into an
ICU
now without feeling haunted by the shadow of old responsibilities and old
failures.
    The surgical intensive care unit at St. Francis had a central
nursing
station surrounded by twelve patient cubicles. Maura stopped at the ward
clerk’s
desk to show her identification.
    “I’m Dr. Isles, from the Medical Examiner’s office.
May I see the chart for your patient, Sister Ursula Rowland?”
    The ward clerk eyed her with a puzzled look. “But the patient
hasn’t expired.”
    “Detective Rizzoli asked me to check on her condition.”
    “Oh. The chart’s in that slot over there. Number
ten.”
    Maura crossed to the row of cubbyholes and pulled out the aluminum
cover containing Bed #10’s hospital chart. She opened it to the preliminary
operative report. It was a handwritten summary, scrawled by the neurosurgeon
immediately
after surgery:
    “Large subdural hematoma identified and drained. Open right
parietal
comminuted skull fracture debrided, elevated. Dural tear closed. Full operative
report
dictated. James Yuen, M.D.”
    She turned to the nurses’ notes, and skimmed the
patient’s
progress since surgery. The intracranial pressures were holding steady, with the
help of intravenous Mannitol and Lasix, as well as forced hyperventilation. It
appeared
that everything that could be done was being done; now it was a waiting game, to
see how much neurological damage would result.
    Carrying the chart, she crossed the unit to Cubicle #10. The
policeman
sitting outside the doorway gave her a nod of recognition. “Hey, Dr.
Isles.”
    “How is the patient doing?” she asked.
    “About the same, I guess. I don’t think she’s woken
up yet.”
    Maura looked at the closed curtains. “Who’s in there
with
her?”
    “The doctors.”
    She knocked on the doorframe, and stepped through the curtain. Two
men were standing by the bed. One was a tall Asian man with a darkly piercing
gaze
and a thick mane of silver hair. The neurosurgeon, she thought, seeing his name
tag: Dr.
Yuen. The man who stood beside him was younger—in his thirties, with
robust
shoulders filling out his white coat. His long blond hair had been pulled back
into
a neat ponytail. Fabio as M.D., thought Maura, regarding the man’s tanned
face
and deep-set gray eyes.
    “I’m sorry to intrude,” she said. “I’m
Dr.
Isles, from the Medical Examiner’s office.”
    “The M.E.’s office?” said Dr. Yuen, looking
baffled.
“Isn’t this visit a little premature?”
    “The lead detective asked me to check in on your patient.
There
is another victim, you know.”
    “Yes,