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reprimand from Witness elders because of it. Preaching time, while independently reported, was monitored, and the dropping off of Marco and Faith’s efforts made them look weak in their devotion. Congregation pressure broke Faith first, leaving him alone, emotionally distraught, and conflicted about his beliefs.
    Jasmine continued her slow decline, and a consulting surgeon at County laid out a terminal prognosis. Without Marco and Faith’s consent to a liver transplant, Jasmine would die.
    To Faith, the news had been Jasmine’s death sentence.
    Organ transplants were discouraged, and downright frowned upon in their faith, unless they could be done without any blood transference. Bloodless transplants could not be done at County, or at any hospital within a five-hundred-mile radius.
    Marco pleaded with Faith, and with the elders, but ultimately, their religious beliefs won out. The transplant was denied.
    Faith wasn’t at the hospital when Jasmine passed. Despite Faith’s postpartum weakness, she was out distributing tracts, preaching of Armageddon.
    Marco couldn’t forgive her for not being there when Jasmine breathed her last breath. The nurse lifted Jasmine’s lifeless body out of the bassinette and, for the first time, Marco was able to hold her without the tubes and catheters in place. Her stomach had blown up and her liver hardened, like a stone in her side. She was the color of saffron, an image that, fifteen years later, Marco still couldn’t get out of his head.
    Medical school was an act of defiance against the congregation and the beginning of a decades-long revenge plan already well under way.
    Marco checked the time on his watch and paced his minimally furnished living room. Watchtower tracts and magazines covered the secondhand coffee table between an inexpensive sofa and a small tube television with no cable feed. He had no need of material things, only to finish what he had started. He picked up the handset on his cordless phone and dialed County Memorial’s switchboard for the third time that morning.
    “County Memorial operator, how may I help you?”
    “May I speak with Mitchell Altman, please?” Marco had left several messages for the CEO, but all of his calls had gone unreturned.
    Hold music broke the tension of the momentary silence, and Mitchell’s secretary, Pam, came on the line. “Mitchell Altman’s office.”
    “Pam, it’s Marco Prusak. Is Mitchell available?”
    “Hold on just a minute while I check.” Normally Pam would chat, but this morning she was all business. A minute passed, maybe two, before she returned on the line. “I’m sorry, Mitchell isn’t in his office. Can I take a message?”
    Pam was a terrible liar.
    “No, thank you. I’ll deliver the message myself.”

CHAPTER 10
    County Memorial’s Emergency Department hit a midafternoon lull after the early-morning rush of flu that had Marion’s people coming in by the dozen.
    Jared washed his hands, sat down at one of several computers behind the nurses’ station, and sorted through the morning’s lab results. Two of his patients were ready for discharge. One would have to be admitted. Open beds were scarce, and if he was lucky, monitoring that admission would keep him late enough to excuse his sleeping in the on-call room rather than going home to Colby, whom he hadn’t spoken to since their most recent argument.
    He typed in a series of orders and signed off on the discharge paperwork for his least sick patient, a young boy with an ear infection that could have easily been treated by his pediatrician.
    Wilson Quinn, one of the department’s physician assistants, appeared in front of him. Six foot three and with a full beard, Wilson had the appearance of someone more suited to the woods than long hours in a hospital emergency room. Those who didn’t know him feared his meaty hands coming at them with needles and IVs, but despite his coarse exterior, Wilson had the best bedside manner in the unit, and the second