“Under the current circumstances, we must do what is best for the patient’s mental stability.”

“Where is she?” I demanded.

“She is being prepared for transport,” Dr. Chen said.

“I suggest you go home and rest.”

“We will contact you in the morning.”

The line went dead.

I looked at the phone, then threw it onto the passenger seat next to the folder.

I pressed my foot down on the accelerator, the truck roaring through a yellow light.

I had ten minutes before I reached the hospital.

As I rounded the corner near the expressway, my dashboard screen lit up with another incoming call.

It was an unknown number.

I pressed the speaker button on the steering wheel.

“Jake,” a woman’s voice said.

It wasn’t Megan.

It was my mother’s voice, calling from the precinct.

“Jake,” she said again, her voice thin and metallic through the truck’s speakers.

“Do not call me,” I said, my hands gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white.

“You need to listen to me, Jake,” she said, her tone perfectly even, as if she were discussing a grocery list.