TWELVE

PRACTICALLY leaping from the bed, I couldn’t wrap my arms around her fast enough. She returned the hug with a tight squeeze. Then she tore herself away.

“We don’t have much time,” she said in a low, conspiratorial voice. “You’re going to be moved upstate, isolated from your friends and family.”

“I know!”

“Listen carefully, Clare. You don’t have to be . . .” Madame described her discussion with another psychiatrist, a Stanford professor who did not agree with Lorca’s approach to treatment.

“I’m glad you told me, because I’ve been having plenty of second thoughts. I don’t want to go upstate. I want to stay with you and learn about my life. I want answers—and coffee! Can you help me get out of here?”

Madame’s pensive expression turned to one of relief. “If you want out—and coffee—I’m here to help.”

“You’ll talk to Dr. Lorca for me?”

“No, dear. We tried that and got nowhere. Since the people who love you don’t trust that man, we’re taking our chances with a slightly unconventional approach to your problem.”

“What kind of approach?”

“We’re breaking you out.”

“Out of this hospital?”

Madame nodded.

“When?”

“Right now, if you’re game.”

“Are you kidding? The sooner, the better, especially if there’s an adult dose of caffeine in it!”

“Good! Then we can’t waste any more time—” Madame tugged a bundle from her tote bag. “Change out of your hospital clothes and put on these scrubs. You’ll need a disguise to get off this floor.”

Happily, I took off my robe and hospital nightgown and unrolled the bundle. “Wait a second. These aren’t real hospital scrubs. They’re covered in sequins!”

“Yes, dear, I know. Just turn everything inside out!”

A minute later, Madame was putting on a large rain poncho and pulling the hood over her head. “Camouflage for the elevator and lobby cameras,” she explained.

Then she tucked the last locks of my unruly hair under the inside-out surgical cap. Finally, she cut off my hospital ID bracelet with the tiny scissors on a Swiss Army knife.

As I straightened my “scrubs,” she offered one last-minute instruction. “If anyone asks, you’re a member of Dr. Glitter’s staff.”

“Dr. Glitter?”

Without further explanation, Madame was already out the door.

“Lead the way,” she told a handsome young doctor.

I was about to ask if this was “Dr. Glitter” when I realized this was no doctor—it was Mr. Dante, the young barista who’d hugged me at the Village Blend. He was wearing scrubs, too, and from the way he was twitching, they were inside out and glitter-ized, as well.

The corridor was free of nurses, but our activity didn’t go unnoticed.

A bald man with a mustache in a tweedy brown sport coat was sitting in the room across from mine. The room’s door was wide open and the man appeared to be reading aloud to the patient in bed. I’d glimpsed this man several times before, in the hallway outside my room, and assumed he was a hospital volunteer, but the moment he caught sight of me, he dropped the newspaper and rose to his feet. He had a tough-looking face and his dark eyes were staring right at me.

Madame and Mr. Dante didn’t appear to notice this man, but it didn’t matter. Before I knew it, we were around the corner, and the bald man with the mustache was out of sight.

The three of us hurried down the hallway to join a small crowd getting into an elevator. I turned in time to see the bald man racing toward us, calling loudly for someone to hold the door. Madame reached out to stop it from closing, but I slapped her hand aside. As the car descended, I could hear him cursing.

“Why did you do that?” she whispered, careful to keep her head down, her face away from the elevator camera.

“Something tells me he’s not just a hospital volunteer.”

A few tense minutes later, we were moving across the crowded lobby and onto the sidewalk.

“What now?” I asked.

“We watch for our getaway car.”

As we stood at the curb, a figure hurried toward us. Like Madame, this person (man? woman? I couldn’t tell) was wearing an oversized rain poncho with the hood pulled up and his or her face directed down.

When this person reached us, I blinked in surprise, recognizing Esther, the zaftig barista with black glasses who’d screamed and cried when she saw me standing in the middle of the Village Blend.

Madame faced her with a frown. “Where’s Tucker?”

“He’s charm-schooling the nurses to cover our tracks. He told me to go, that he would be fine.”

Seconds later, a black SUV rolled up and we climbed in. Behind the wheel, a broad-shouldered figure in a dark hoodie told us to hurry up and close the doors.

Oh, no, I thought. It can’t be . . .

But it was. The driver’s voice belonged to my lying, cheating ex-husband, Matteo Allegro.

“Strap in,” he ordered, pulling away from the curb. “This is going to be a bumpy ride.”