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"Is Detective Trent here so I can talk to him?"
"Special Agent. You already did. He just left."
Sara was sure she was missing something. "The man who was just in here is a cop?"
She laughed. "It's the suit. You're not the first person to think he's an undertaker."
"I thought lawyer," Sara admitted, thinking she had never met anyone who looked less like a police officer in her life.
"I'll have to tell him you thought he was a lawyer. He'll be pleased you took him for an educated man."
For the first time, Sara noticed the woman was not wearing a wedding ring. "So, the father is . . ."
"In and out of the picture." Faith didn't seem embarrassed by the information, though Sara supposed that there wasn't much that could embarrass you after having a child at fifteen. "I'd prefer Will didn't know," Faith said. "He's very—" She stopped mid-sentence. She closed her eyes, pressed her lips together. A sheen of sweat had broken out on her forehead.
Sara pressed her fingers to Faith's wrist again. "What's happening here?"
Faith clenched her jaw, not answering.
Sara had been vomited on enough to know the warning signs. She went to the sink to wet a paper towel, telling Faith, "Take a deep breath and let it out slowly."
Faith did as she was told, her lips trembling.
"Have you been irritable lately?"
Despite her condition, Faith tried for levity. "More than usual?" She put her hand to her stomach, suddenly serious. "Yes. Nervous. Annoyed." She swallowed. "I get a buzzing in my head, like there are bees in my brain."
Sara pressed the cold paper towel to the woman's forehead. "Any nausea?"
"In the mornings," Faith managed. "I thought it was morning sickness, but . . ."
"What about the headaches?"
"They're pretty bad, mostly in the afternoon."
"Have you been unusually thirsty? Urinating a lot?"
"Yes. No. I don't know." She managed to open her eyes, asking, "So, what is it—the flu or brain cancer or what?"
Sara sat on the edge of the bed and took the woman's hand.
"Oh, God, is it that bad?" Before Sara could answer, she said, "Doctors and cops only sit down when it's bad news."
Sara wondered how she had missed this revelation. In all her years with Jeffrey Tolliver, she'd thought she had figured out every one of his tics, but this one had passed her by. She told Faith, "I was married to a cop for fifteen years. I never noticed, but you're right—my husband always sat down when there was bad news."
"I've been a cop for fifteen years," Faith responded. "Did he cheat on you or turn into an alcoholic?"
Sara felt a lump in her throat. "He was killed three and a half years ago."
"Oh, no," Faith gasped, putting her hand to her chest. "I'm so sorry."
"It's all right," Sara answered, wondering why she'd even told the woman such a personal detail. Her life over the last few years had been dedicated to not talking about Jeffrey, and here she was sharing him with a stranger. She tried to ease the tension by adding, "You're right. He cheated on me, too." At least he had the first time Sara married him.
"I'm so sorry," Faith repeated. "Was he on duty?"
Sara didn't want to answer her. She felt nauseated and overwhelmed, probably a lot like Faith had felt before she'd passed out in the parking lot.
Faith picked up on this. "You don't have to—"
"Thanks."
"I hope they got the bastard."
Sara put her hand into her pocket, her fingers wrapping around the edge of the letter. That was the question everyone wanted answered: Did they get him? Did they catch the bastard who killed your husband? As if it mattered. As if the disposition of Jeffrey's killer would somehow alleviate the pain of his death.
Mercifully, Mary came into the room. "Sorry," the nurse apologized. "The old lady's kids just dropped her here. I had to call social services." She handed Sara a piece of paper. "CMP's back."
Sara frowned as she read the numbers on the metabolic profile. "Do you have your monitor?"
Mary reached into her pocket and handed over her blood glucose monitor.
Sara swabbed some alcohol on the tip of Faith's finger. The CMP was incredibly accurate, but Grady was a large hospital and it wasn't unheard of for the lab to get samples mixed up. "When was the last time you had a meal?" she asked Faith.
"We were in court all day." Faith hissed "Shit" as the lancet pierced her finger, then continued, "Around noon, I ate part of a sticky bun Will got out of the vending machine."
Sara tried again. "The last real meal."
"Around eight o'clock last night."
Sara guessed from the guilty look on Faith's face that it had probably come out of a take-away bag. "Did you have coffee this morning?"
"Maybe half a cup. The smell was a bit too much."
"Cream and sugar?"
"Black. I usually eat a good breakfast—yogurt, fruit. Right after my run." Faith asked, "Is something wrong with my blood sugar?"
"We'll see," Sara told her, squeezing some blood onto the test strip. Mary raised an eyebrow, as if to ask if Sara wanted to place a wager on the number. Sara shook her head: no bet. Mary persisted, using her fingers to indicate one-five-zero.
"I thought the test came later," Faith said, sounding unsure of herself. "When they make you drink the sugary stuff?"
"Have you ever had any problems with your blood sugar? Is there a history in your family?"
"No. None."
The monitor beeped and the number 152 flashed on the screen.
Mary gave a low whistle, impressed by her own guess. Sara had once asked the woman why she didn't go to medical school, only to be told that nurses were the ones who practiced the real medicine.
Sara told Faith, "You have diabetes."
Faith's mouth worked before she managed a faint, "What?"
"My guess is that you've been pre-diabetic for a while. Your cholesterol and triglycerides are extremely elevated. Your blood pressure is a little high. The pregnancy and the rapid weight gain—ten pounds is a lot for nine weeks—plus your bad eating habits, pushed you over the edge."
"My first pregnancy was fine."
"You're older now." Sara gave her some tissue to press against her finger so the bleeding would stop. "I want you to follow up with your regular doctor first thing in the morning. We need to make sure there's not something else going on here. Meanwhile, you have to keep your blood sugar under control. If you don't, passing out in the parking lot will be the least of your worries."
"Maybe it's just—I haven't been eating right, and—"
Sara cut her off mid-denial. "Anything over one-forty is a positive diagnosis for diabetes. Your number has actually inched up since the first blood test was taken."
Faith took her time absorbing this. "Will it last?"
The question was one for an endocrinologist to answer. "You'll need to talk to your doctor and have him run some more tests," Sara advised, though, if she had to make an educated guess, she would say that Faith was in a precarious situation. Except for the pregnancy, she would be presenting as a full-blown diabetic.
