Джеймс Паттерсон - The Midwife Murders

We watch the very brief scene a few times. We determine by mutual agreement that the shoes are red, possibly purple.

During the fifth viewing, my phone sounds with a text.

I click, and the screen says, Birthing rm 4. ASAP. G. Leonard.

I show the screen to Troy.

“Do we have a mama called G. Leonard?” Troy asks.

“Never heard of her,” I say. “But it sounds like she’s in birthing room 4, and she’s about to have a baby.”

CHAPTER 24

TROY PUSHES THE PAUSE button on the surveillance video, ejects the disc from my laptop, and we both rush toward birthing room 4.

“Who sent the alert about this G. Leonard woman?” Troy asks as we walk-run down the hallway.

“It was unsigned,” I said. “No name. It’s probably from ER. We’ll find out soon enough.”

Outside birthing room 4 is an unusually large group, even for these crazy times: two NYPD officers and two GUH Security people, plus two people in plain clothes. The cheap gray suits give them away as private security, Secret Service types. One woman with two cameras around her neck stands talking quietly to a guy who has a microphone attached to a fairly bulky recording apparatus. Nobody stops us from entering the room.

Standing around a birthing cot I see Dr. Lia Alba, a senior pediatrician. With her is Dr. Steve Swanbeck, a research neurologist. There is a third person—Dr. Rudra Sarkar. My eyes widen a bit as I look at the woman in the bed. Son of a bitch, it’s none other than internationally insanely famous Greta Moss, apparently now using the alias G. Leonard.

I should have known.

“You tricked me, goddamnit,” I say to Sarkar. “Your call sheet said you were up in the Bronx clinic all day.”

He smiles at me—boyish, charming, handsome—but it doesn’t work at all this time. I am way beyond furious.

“Forget it, Dr. Sarkar. Just forget it,” I say.

“You’re not going to leave us out here to dry, are you?” he asks.

“You bet your ass that I’m going to leave you out here to dry,” I say.

“But Ms. Moss is about to deliver,” Sarkar says.

Sarkar is head of the department. I’m sure he’s correct, but, almost reflexively, I place both my hands on Greta Moss’s taut stomach. Yep, Greta’s ready to go. I look closely at Greta’s face. She’s squinting with the beginning of labor pains. I’m ashamed to admit— even to myself —that all I can think is My God, this woman is beautiful!

I also can’t help but notice that she’s wearing full makeup: eyeliner, mascara, even a little foundation.

“Somebody get her jewelry removed,” I say.

“Absolutely not,” Greta yells.

Troy speaks firmly. He’s not in the mood to charm the patient. He tells her, “This is standard procedure, ma’am, in case surgery becomes necessary. This isn’t a fashion show, lady.”

“Do you know how valuable these earrings are? I’m not taking them off,” says Greta.

Now it’s time for my special touch. “That’s fine,” I say. “In that case, then, you can deliver your own baby. Or they can wheel you right down the corridor to obstetrics.”

“Very well,” Greta says.

Then Troy begins advising Greta on simple breathing. Greta seems uninterested.

“You gotta do some short breaths with me, ma’am,” Troy says. “You took the natural childbirth class, didn’t you?”

She looks at him blankly. It dawns on me that chances are great that our patient did not attend any natural childbirth classes. Perhaps she expected customer service from Chanel or Bergdorf to show up in her hospital room with a newborn in a shopping bag.

Suddenly a voice comes from behind me. “You can do this, Greta. I’ll coach you.” I turn around and I see football star and all-American heartthrob Hank Waldren. The guy can only be described as annoyingly handsome . I do not go weak in the knees.

Sarkar moves close to me. “I see you have everything under control,” he whispers. Then he adds, “Thank you,” and leaves.

I’m pissed off enough to give him a punch, but I’ve got my diva patient to take care of.

Greta’s knees are bent, pointing up. Her chin is pushing hard into her sternum. Troy is still advising on breathing. Every thirty seconds he says, “Everything’s looking good down below.”

I know that the labor pains are intense, but Greta doesn’t yell, doesn’t cry. Her face is contorted, but that’s it.

I wipe the perspiration from her head. I feel compelled to say, “You’re doing well, Greta. You’re doing just fine.” Then I turn and look at her husband standing behind me.

“Why don’t you hold her hand?” I say to Waldren. He nods quickly and reaches for his wife’s hand.

“No,” Greta says as she pulls her hand away from him. “I’m good. I’m doing good.”

I move into the firm-strong-angry mode, the tone I’ve perfected over the years. “Listen, Greta. This is a two-person job. You and Hank are in this together. Take his hand.”

The model holds out her elegant model hand—the slim fingers, the perfect skin, the tapered nails. The football player takes that hand into his own very big hand. The couple look at each other.

“Good,” I say. “Let’s have a baby.”

CHAPTER 25

IF EVER SOMEONE NEEDED actual living proof that the Lord is consistently kind and generous to the rich and the beautiful, Greta Moss’s delivery is that proof. Her eight-anda-half-pound— You heard that right, eight and a half pounds. The baby almost weighs the same as the mother —baby boy arrives quickly, happily, and looking camera ready. It was a traditional vaginal birth, but amazingly he came out wrinkle-free. I could swear that he actually smelled of Johnson’s Baby Powder when he arrived.

The photographers descend, and Hank and Greta’s “people” allow the media—“Two at a time, please!”—into the room for photos. People, Vogue, Football Weekly.

Troy looks at me and whispers, “Ya know, this sort of reminds me of something I read about that happened in Bethlehem two thousand years ago.”

Meanwhile, I am busting to make my way to Dr. Rudi Sarkar’s office. I am so damned ready to lace into him about tricking me into assisting with Greta Moss’s birth. Of course the moment he sees me, he knows why I’ve come, and his charm defense is in high gear. His head is tilted to one side. His precious phony smile is that of a little boy who’s broken his mommy’s favorite vase.

“Okay. Okay. Okay. Mea culpa.”

My response? “You son of a bitch!”

“Look,” he says. “I tried to talk Greta out of relying on your services. But she insisted.”

“But you didn’t care to remember that I insisted I didn’t want to do it,” I say, just a few decibels away from a scream. “Your trying to talk her out of it came way too late in the game.”

“Listen. Greta Moss and Hank Waldren are extremely important people in New York. Right? It didn’t hurt.”

I raise my voice a little higher. “No, now you listen. I don’t give a shit. I’m extremely un important, but you asked. I said no, and then you … then you …”

Sarkar now says what I’ve actually been holding back from saying. “And then I tricked you.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth.”

“Yes. I suspect I did.”

I walk toward the door. He follows me and holds the door closed.

“Look, Lucy. The Waldrens and their new baby will be all over the papers and the internet and tonight’s TV. Smiling. Happy. Most important for us, safe. It will be wonderful publicity for the hospital. And we sure can use it.”

“But you tricked me. You lied to me,” I say. My voice is only a shade softer.

He moves back to his desk and turns to thrust a laptop screen in my face. “Look at this,” he says. He scrolls upward. He holds the screen even closer to my face, and I read the New York Post headline: