The doctor’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

He pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and looked up at me with a strange expression.

“Dr. Vale is downstairs,” he said.

“He is coming up to your room right now.”

The door handle clicked.

The sound was sharp in the quiet hospital room.

A man in a charcoal wool coat stepped inside, closing the door softly behind him.

He was tall, with silver hair brushed straight back and small, gold-rimmed glasses resting on the bridge of his nose.

He smelled of peppermint and cold Sacramento air.

“Miss Darcy,” he said, his voice smooth and perfectly modulated. “I am Dr. Vale.”

Ana stepped between his path and my bed, her posture rigid.

“You have no authorization to be in this room, Dr. Vale,” Ana said. “I am Alana’s legal counsel, and I am demanding you leave.”

Dr. Vale did not look at her; his eyes remained fixed on me.

He carried a thick manila folder under his left arm.

“I have every right to be here, counselor,” he said, pulling a chair from the corner of the room. “As her treating physician of record, my concern is purely clinical.”