“I won’t let them live while you die,” she whispered to the rhythmic hissing of the ventilator.

She stood up. She didn’t kiss Emily’s forehead; she was done with tenderness. She needed to be something else now.

She walked out of the ICU, past the nurses’ station, past the weeping families. She walked out the automatic doors into the morning rain.

She got into her truck. She didn’t turn toward the police station. She didn’t turn toward her home. She drove to the construction site where she worked as a foreman. She unlocked the supply shed.

She took a heavy, five-gallon red canister of gasoline. She took a box of windproof matches. She grabbed a crowbar.

She threw them into the passenger seat.

The prognosis was death. Margaret decided she would simply change the recipient.

PART2

The drive to the Gable estate took twenty minutes. It was 4:00 P.M. now; the sky was a bruised purple, heavy with storm clouds.