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telling her he “was indeed crazy, crazy in love” with her.
    Sabrina had to admit that she didn’t remember any hardships. She couldn’t remember the family ever—not once—going without. Her father’s teaching job at the university always provided more than enough. It wasn’t until after her mother was gone that Sabrina realized all those arguments, all those hurled accusations were simply her mother’s way of saying that she knew Arthur Galloway could have been a famous inventor if only he hadn’t been saddled with a family and monthly responsibilities. That she understood he had sacrificed something larger than the sum of all of them, and she wanted to make sure he knew, over and over again, that she hadn’t asked for any of it. Almost as if she was also giving him a reason, or perhaps a second chance, to change his mind, the ravings of a woman who could never believe she was worthy of her good fortune. The fact was that Meredith and Arthur Galloway were crazy in love with each other. In the end it wasn’t her mother’s petulance that drove Arthur Galloway crazy or drove a wedge between her children. Instead, it was the absence of that petulance, the absence of her mother that had ripped them all to shreds.
    Something slid and crashed outside, startling Sabrina. She jumped even as she recognized the sound, then winced at a second crash. She raced across her living room to the sliding glass door.
    “Hey, cut it out,” she yelled, shoving open the door.
    Too late. The huge white cat batted a paw, sending a third terra-cotta flowerpot off the deck railing.
    “Come on, Lizzie, give me a break.”
    Sabrina grabbed the broom that had become a common fixture in the corner of her small patio. She waved it in front of the cat before Lizzie could swipe at the next pot in the row. It took Sabrina weeks of yelling to realize the feline terror was stone deaf, so even raising the broom did no good unless it was in the cat’s line of vision.
    On a morning like this the last thing Sabrina needed was to have to deal with Lizzie Borden.

2
    Friday, June 9
Tallahassee, Florida
    The phone had wakened Sabrina Galloway almost an hour before her alarm clock was set to go off. Now she snapped it off and replaced it on her nightstand. Even as she sank back into the pillows she found herself waiting for her heart to stop galloping and her breathing to return to normal.
    What did she expect? This was exactly why she had uprooted her quiet, predictable life in Chicago and moved to Tallahassee. And she had given the hospital permission to call at any time of day. Still, it startled her each time the phone rang before sunrise.
    “Did I wake you?”
    The tone was always the same—abrupt, authoritarian and unapologetic. Even though it was a different nurse every time, each one said similar things. In the beginning Sabrina had tried to remember their names. Now that the calls became more frequent she had gotten lax in her manners, which would have made her father angry or at least it would have in another time. Not so much anymore.
    “I know it’s early,” the nurse had continued, “but I’m getting ready to end my shift.” This, too, was a frequent reason, whether the call came past midnight or before 6:00 a.m.
    “Of course I understand,” Sabrina said and bit down on her lower lip. Truth was, she didn’t understand why someone on the next shift couldn’t call her at a more reasonable time, at a time that wouldn’t automatically jump-start her heart and put her into emergency mode, that is, if there wasn’t an emergency. At this rate would she be able to tell when the real emergency came?
    “He tried to leave the premises again,” the woman said without alarm or urgency. More than anything, she sounded annoyed, like she was talking about an errant teenager breaking curfew. And almost as an afterthought she added, “He’s demanding to see you. Dr. Fullerton seems to think it might settle him down a bit if he does see