“Ms. Promachos,” said the nurse behind the desk at the entrance to Aretha’s ward, “checked out about half an hour ago.”

I felt stunned. As if someone had clubbed me between the eyes. “Checked out…?”

“Yes. Are you Mr. O’Ryan?”

I nodded mutely.

“She left a message for you.” The nurse handed me a folded scrap of paper. My name was penciled on it, in what looked like swift, rushing strokes. She had misspelled O’Ryan. I opened the tablet sheet and read: No time. The dark one … Then, in an almost undecipherable scribble, Underground.

I crumpled the sheet in my hand.

“When did you say she left?”

The nurse was an experienced old bird. The look in her narrow eyes told me that she did not want to get involved in a lover’s triangle.

“When?” I repeated.

She glanced at the digital clock on the panel in front of her seat. “Twenty-eight minutes ago, to be exact.”

“Who was with her?”

“I didn’t get his name. She signed herself out.”

“What did he look like?”

She hesitated. I could see a struggle going on inside her head. Then: “A big man. Not quite as tall as you, but… big. Y’know? Wide as a bus. Like a Mafia hit man, only worse. He looked… threatening. Scared you just to see him.”

“Dark complexion, black hair, bushy brows.”

“That’s him.” She nodded. “Only… Ms. Promachos didn’t seem to be afraid of him. I was, but she didn’t look scared at all. Acted like she knew him, like he was a member of her family.”

“Some family.”

The nurse had no idea where they had gone. It was against hospital rules for her to give me Aretha’s home address, but she did it anyway, with only the slightest urging from me. The dark one had truly frightened her.