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Mark walks into the kitchen, showered, ready for a day sitting in his handyman office staring out the window. We haven’t spoken since last night, when I’d mentioned the D-word. Unlike him, I haven’t slept. After realizing who the notebook belonged to, I retreated to the garage and read Cora Granger’s file cover to cover. Later today, I plan to get in touch with her and make sure she’s okay.
Mark pours the last of the coffee into an old, stained travel mug with the image of Burt Reynolds’s face on the side. I hate that mug. I also wanted that coffee.
I turn away.
“So change the circumstances,” I snap, my patience cashed out. “I can call my pediatrician and have her submit a different code to for the testing. What codes cover genetic testing?”
“I can’t—I’m not sure?—”
“Give me the list of diagnostic codes in which you will cover genetic testing, then I’ll give those to my doctor and she’ll use one of those. I’ll wait while you look them up.”
“Uh, ma’am, they’re linked under many different diagnoses that may not correspond with?—”
I clench my jaw and stifle a scream. “Fine. Just tell me how much it will be out of pocket?”
“How much is what?”
“Genetic. Testing,” I seethe.
The sound of the agent’s nails clicking the keyboard tap through the phone like ice pelting glass. I want to throw the phone through the window.
“For a full gene panel,” she says, “it’s $1,200, estimate.”
Estimate.
“How much for the whole exome? The one that looks deeper into the genes? They said we might have to do that next.”
“$2,750, estimate.”
“Christ.” I shake my head. “While I have you, can you confirm that you’ll cover his autism testing? It’s a full day of testing, I can give you?—”
“No, we don’t cover that.”
I am about to spit every vile word I’ve ever heard in my life through the phone when a Breaking News alert beeps from the television. The banner reads:
Local woman found murdered—third victim in less than a week.
Above the banner is a picture of Cora Granger.
The phone drops from my hand.
FORTY-THREE
ROWAN
“I thought you were going to work today?” Shepherd asks as I walk into the kitchen in a long sleeve T-shirt and sweatpants.
I lower into a seat at the table, across from him. A coffee cup steams next to him, the morning paper in his hands. I asked him, long ago, why he prefers the newspaper over the hundred options of online apps available on his phone. He told me he likes the feeling of the paper between his fingertips.
This morning’s headline: Another woman found dead.
Though the FBI has virtually shut out everyone since finding the third body, I was able to glean some information from Hoffman, who has kept his ear to the ground at the station. Cora Granger was found dead in her home, by her husband, after he’d gotten home from work. Her injuries were similar to the other women’s, although Cora had an X carved over her mouth.
“I’m taking some time off,” I say, my eyes locked on his. “I just called in. I’m going to take the week off, at least.”
“Time off? You’ve never taken a week off work.” He tilts his head to the side, regarding me closely. “Especially with all this stuff going on,” he lifts the paper. The entire front page details the homicides of Alyssa Kaing, Macy Swift, and Cora Granger.
“The feds have taken over those cases,” I shrug.
