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on the nurse as she rolled the disposal can from the room to the bathroom.
    She turned away.
    â€œDon’t ever call me here again,” she said, her voice, decidedly firm.
    She pressed the button to disconnect the call. The line went dead, but she didn’t put the phone down just yet.
    â€œDon’t worry. I will be fine,” she said, her eyes purposefully catching the attention of the hospital worker. “I miss you, too. I can’t wait to see you.”
    The nurse who frequently didn’t see a need to hold her tongue just looked at her.
    Tori shifted in the bed. “My sister,” she said. “She’s coming to see me.”
    Diana nodded and smiled, that practiced smile that didn’t really betray the fact that she thought the patient with the dead husband was a B.S. artist of the highest order.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Tacoma
    The Tacoma News Tribune ran a follow-up to the shooting in the morning’s paper:

    Police Question Widow in North End Shooting
    Tori Connelly, the wife of a Tacoma financial consultant, was questioned by police in conjunction with the shooting death of her husband, Alex.

    â€œWe’re satisfied that this case will reach a proper conclusion soon,” said lead investigator Edmund Kaminski. “Ms. Connelly has been cooperative.”

    A tech working in Tacoma Police Department’s state-of-the-art forensics lab had taken a swab of Tori Connelly’s hands for gunshot residue particles at the scene of her husband’s murder. An analyst at the lab compared the particles captured by the swab to determine if the woman who’d been injured was the shooter. Law enforcement in Tacoma and elsewhere had become wary of gunshot residue in the past few years. There were several instances on the law books in which men had been wrongfully convicted when they tested positive for GSR when they’d only handled a gun, or had recently been in the proximity of one that had been fired. There had also been a famous Northwest case that was botched when it was determined that the GSR found on a shooter’s jacket had been the result of contamination from a police detective who’d been at the firing range before going out to the murder scene.
    Tori Connelly’s white nightgown was next. It had been hanging in the biohazard room drying since the shooting. Specialist Cal Herzog spread out the garment on a table under fluorescent and ultraviolet lights to see what story it might tell.
    Eddie Kaminski stood over the garment next to the tech, a young man in his late twenties with hair heavy with product and teeth that appeared all the whiter as the ultraviolet light bounced off the fabric of the filmy nightgown. The blood had already dried to a dark wine, almost chestnut, color.
    The younger man, Rory, smoothed out the fabric, took a series of photos, and cut two small square patches from the bloodiest part of the material. He made a few remarks about the blood’s pooling and how gravity had dragged a pair of rivulets down to the hemline.
    â€œCan’t be sure until we analyze it, but it doesn’t look like there’s anything here other than what we see. No semen. No other fluids,” he said.
    â€œWhat’s interesting is right here,” Cal said. His hands were gloved, but he didn’t get close enough to the nightgown to really touch it. He motioned to the fabric, though his eyes stayed on the young man.
    â€œWhat are you getting at?” Kaminski asked.
    â€œLook closer.”
    â€œI am looking closer,” Rory said, his teeth flashing like a cotton bale bound by steel wires. “I don’t see anything.”
    â€œPrecisely. There’s nothing to see.”
    â€œSo? I’m not blind,” the young man said.
    Cal rolled his eyes, enjoying the moment.
    Kaminski held his tongue. What he wanted to say was something about the kid having earned his degree in a correspondence course or that whatever training he really