Excerpt: Stranger, Come In [working title]

"Her reflexes are good. She isn't paralyzed," Meredith said, looking at Natalya through the glass.

"And I'll bet she has health insurance," Wheeler said. He grinned.

Meredith rolled her eyes.

"If she's really a lawyer."

"She is."

"Do you recognize her, Merry? Is she your lawyer?"

She sighed, and pushed away from the glass. "You old fox. Don't you ever watch the news?"

"Too depressing. I'd rather be out with my dogs."

She took him out of intensive care and through the general ward. Sick people in the waiting room looked at them hopefully, and then ignored them when Meredith merely pointed at the TV.

News 14 was showing the weather.

Wheeler glanced at Meredith.

"The crawler, Doc," she said.

He squinted, and read, mumbling, "...for Natalie Ivanovich enters its fourth day. Police are dragging Jordan Lake for a possible body. She's the lead attorney for the state prosecution against Mike Roland...

"That the guy that drowned his wife?" Wheeler asked.

"Allgedly."

"And they think he offed the prosecution?"

"They don't know, I guess," Meredith said.

"That she was just on her way to the beach in her fancy BMW and hit a goddamn deer," he said.

Merry raised her eyebrows.

"Sorry. Jesus." He took out his wallet and handed her a dollar bill.

She tilted her head.

"Christ." He took out two more dollars. She put them in her pocket.

"You know I have to request dollar bills at the bank now? My banker thinks I'm seeing a stripper. I have to hide the money from my wife."

Meredith winked.

The weather went off, and Natalie Ivanovich filled the screen as the lead story.

With Natalya's face bruised rom the steering wheel and her body pretzeled from the car flipping, she looked absolutely nothing like her picture. They'd shaved most of her dark hair.

A grave-looking Baltimore sherriff tried to explain that after 48 hours, hope was unrealistic. She'd never checked into her beach house. Her car was missing. Her cell phone was off. Her cat was being taken care of by a friend.

"Well, I'll be," Wheeler said.

"I should call the police," Meredith said.

"Yeah. And then see if you can get in contact with her family." Wheeler ducked back into the patient's room.

Meredith stood watching the news report. Apparently there were no parents to contact, no boyfriend, no leads in her townhouse in the Inner Harbor. Nobody cried on television for Natalie's tearful return. If Roland hadn't been on the front page of the Baltimore Sun every day for a year and a half, no one would have noticed Natalie was gone.

So nice that a murderer could be so helpful.

Alleged murderer, Meredith corrected herself. Alleged.

And despite being a suspect in a prosecutor's disapperance, Mike Roland was a free man.

For now.

Meredith hadn't followed the case beyond the nurses' gossip in the locker room, but now, seeing him in handcuffs from stock footage from his original arrest, her heart filled with dread. She looked away.

The conversation of the waiting room seeped through her--worried voices, sad voices, deflecting:

"You think he did that lawyer?"

"He ain't got the balls. She probably just went nuts. You know, like Anne Heche."

"Or maybe she's a runaway bride."

"I think she just realized she couldn't win against a man like Roland and ran with her tail between her legs. Arf!"

"Nah, I think he drowned her, just like the other bitch. They should dredge the harbor."

Meredith shook her head and left them to the gossip and the blaring television as she pushed through the door.

If she had a dollar for every bad thought in the universe...