Kate was scheduled to be discharged at 10:00 a.m. today, and James Kepler’s silver Tesla Roadster in the pickup driveway indicated this was still the plan. But it was 10:45, and still no Kate. Rowe settled lower in the Buick’s front seat and adjusted his baseball cap. If anyone he knew saw him out here like this, he’d be forced to say he was here checking up on a witness, which—as excuses went—was pretty damn weak. In reality, Rowe had no official business here whatsoever. Yet here he was, checking up on a witness, the witness he’d failed to protect, the witness who was, at this very moment, being transferred to a rehab hospital so she could recover from the gunshot that had wreaked havoc with her right arm. According to Kate’s doctors—whom Rowe had interviewed under the flimsy pretense of tying up investigative loose ends—Kate might never recover the full use of that arm, and she certainly would have nasty scars on it for the rest of her life.
