The Midwife Murders by James Patterson, Richard Dilallo

says.
    “But these could be helpful,” I say.
    “I don’t disagree. They
could
be helpful, very helpful. I’ll keep them in mind.”
    Vesuvius explodes again. “Keep them in mind? You’re going to
keep them in mind
?” I shout. And I expect that my pale, lightly freckled Irish face is turning red.
    “Look. Our team has studied these exact same recordings. Don’t you think part of our process was to view the footage from every security camera in the hospital? They took screenshots of appropriate moments in the tapes. So we’ve been there.”
    “I believe you, but what I don’t believe is that any of
your team
took notice of that woman in the nurse’s uniform wearing stiletto heels. Did they?”
    “I really can’t share information about our progress or process with you,” he says, and he is clearly becoming impatient. But certainly no more impatient than myself.
    I quickly grab the photos from Blumenthal’s hands. He goes back to his laptop.
    Then I say what I’d planned to say when I first walked into the inquiry office: “I am so sick and tired of this bullshit.”

CHAPTER 28
    I’M OUT OF BLUMENTHAL’S makeshift office, quickly heading back to the Midwifery Division. In the giant complex of Gramatan University Hospital, this is where I feel safest and happiest. I don’t want to sound like my crazy cousin Margaret Mary, with her shaved head and 1960s love beads, but this is a happy place, a place of simple joy. This is where the midwives and the mothers and the babies all come together. I’m all for women who opt for the kind of hospital birth Dr. Sarkar provides, but I believe there is a difference between the two styles. In the world of the midwife, giving birth is a natural process, not a medical procedure.
    I have no appointments listed this afternoon, sort of a minor miracle in itself. Because I have no patients, I’m just a little confused when Troy comes in—without knocking, of course—and tells me, “You’ve got one agitated young lady sitting in your examination room, Lucy. That’s all I’m gonna say.” He pauses, then starts talking again. “Well, I will say oneother thing. It’s someone you may remember from the not so distant past.”
    Curious and, because of the current circumstances in the hospital, a little apprehensive, I walk into the examination room.
    Valerina Gomez is seated on the examination table. She is dressed in a torn and dirty gray sweatshirt, cheap-looking jeans, and flip-flops.
    Val looks about as awful as a pretty woman can look—or like a woman who just gave birth to twins, and lost one. Her hair is oily, unwashed. Her lovely face is marked with bruises and red blotches, patches of acne, and lots of smudged, caked-on makeup. She is shaking: her arms, her legs, her shoulders. As soon as she sees me enter, she bursts out crying.
    I put my arms around her shoulders, and during the thirty or forty seconds that I am holding Val I cannot help but consider the dramatic differences between her and Greta Moss.
    Each woman is beautiful, but Greta is tall and hyper-styled. Val is small and sexy and, well, hot. Val has been totally screwed by life—the worst of luck in where she grew up, in her finances, in her future. Greta? Well, her fairy tale is told all over the internet every day.
    Finally Val is calm enough to speak. “Lucy, they took my baby!” she yells.
    Oh, Christ.
I think that yet another baby has been stolen. But I’m understandably being an alarmist. Val quickly clarifies.
    “No. She wasn’t stolen, if that’s what you’re thinking. I was supposed to be discharged from the hospital with my baby last night. And that’s when they told me. A doctor or a midwife or a nurse or somebody told me that my baby girl and I are all set and ready to leave. Then a nurse comes in, andshe is all efficient and mean, and she says that the doctor or whoever is wrong. I cannot have my baby. ‘Yes,’ I say. And then they said, ‘No, that is not possible. You