She could not.
Three nurses had come out of the rooms behind her.
Someone’s phone was recording.
Henrietta looked around at the circle of faces and suddenly seemed to understand how it looked.
She yanked her arm loose, hugged the Birkin to her chest, and walked back down the hall without another word.
When the elevator doors closed behind her, nobody spoke.
Then Mrs. Okafor, the charge nurse who had worked beside my mother for nine years, bent down and started picking up the hundred-dollar bills.
She did not hand them to my mother.
She counted them.
She slid the bank band back on.
And she said, to no one in particular, “Detective, I’d like to turn this over as evidence.”
Detective Ridgeway nodded slowly.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Jonathan knelt to gather the torn pages.
His hands were shaking again.
I knelt beside him.
For a second, neither of us said anything.
