After a few minutes, she felt the prickly sensation on the back of her neck she often got when someone was watching her. She checked the time on her tablet—Lila was due soon but she hadn’t heard a car drive in. Who in the world would be walking around out here at this time of day? Slowly, she searched the expanse of the backyard down to where the drive curved around to the barn and saw no one. Of course she saw no one. There was no one there. She went back to reading and then she heard it. An ear-splitting screech that ended abruptly on a choking rattle. Gripping her tablet, she raised her eyes, prepared to jump up and run for the house.

It was standing about ten feet in front of her, one foot held up in the air, its head cocked to the left, blinking slowly. Its tail feathers were ragged but brilliantly colored: red and blue and golden brown. Its wings looked just as scruffy as its tail, with a few short feathers poking out at odd angles and looking as if they were about to fall out. It made another sound, a crowing croak, and bobbed its head.

“Go away.” Presley waved a hand. “Shoo.”

It put its foot down gingerly and hobbled a step closer.

“No, not this way.” She pointed in the general direction of the driveway. “Go that way. Go back to…wherever.” It hop-walked several more steps closer.

She drew her legs up onto the stair below where she sat. She didn’t think chickens—or whatever it was, exactly—attacked people, but she wasn’t leaving her bare feet exposed as an enticement. “No, no, no. Go back wherever you came from.”

“Could be that’s one of old Mrs. White’s brood,” Lila said from inside the kitchen door. “I bet they couldn’t catch him, and they just left him behind.”

“Well, he needs to go back to wherever he’s been staying. He’s getting poop all over the lawn.”

Lila chuckled. “Good fertilizer.”

“Not when it’s on the bottom of my shoe.”

“Hmm. Looks like he’s got a bum leg. If you want, I’ll have one of my sons come out and take care of him for you.”

“Good,” Presley said, returning to the news. The crowing resumed, the short caws rising at the end as if he was asking a question. She ignored it and he stopped. After another minute or two of silence, she peeked up. He was three feet in front of her, studying her with a disconcerting stare.

“You’re not very smart, are you?”

“Caw?”

“Lila? What is this thing?”

“A rooster, last time I looked.”

“What’s it good for?”

“Not much, not without the hens. Roosters are handy for protecting the chickens—keeping the predators away. And of course, if you want baby chicks—”

“God forbid.”

“Well then, he doesn’t really have much to do now.”

Presley hesitated. “What do you mean, your son will take care of him?”

“He’s lame. Probably no one’s been feeding him, and he doesn’t have a flock to look after. He doesn’t look too old to make a decent stew, though.”

“Oh.” Presley looked back down at the news and couldn’t find her place. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the rooster peck at the bare ground as if searching for some morsel. She broke off a corner of her muffin and tossed it toward him. His head bobbed as he studied it.

“Go ahead. It’s better than the dirt you’ve been picking up.”

The feathers on his neck gleamed in the sunlight, flashes of iridescent purple and blue as subtle as jewels. The sounds he made changed, the pitch rising as he pecked apart the small bit of corn muffin with obvious enthusiasm.

“Lila.”

Lila peered out the screen door again. “Yes?”

“Don’t bother your sons with him. He’ll probably just go on back to wherever he came from.”

“All right, if you’re sure.”

She wasn’t. “I’m sure.”

She went back to the news with the soft clucks of the busy rooster keeping her company. When she rose to get ready for work, he was still scratching about in the yard. “Lila,” she called as she walked inside, “what do these things like to eat?”

Chapter Seven

Harper parked in the staff lot behind the hospital and let herself in through the employee entrance with her ID card. She hadn’t slept much and had decided to start rounds early. At six thirty, a half hour before shift change, the halls were still quiet. She’d always loved the hospital at night, when a hushed stillness fell over the dimly lit halls, a serene quiet that seemed to promise hope for those who saw the new day and peace for those who did not.

Walking to the stairwell, she ran the list of patients in her head. Plenty of time to see them all before meeting Presley. She’d learned a few things about Presley Worth the night before. At least what Presley Worth chose to show the world. Thirty years old, only daughter of Yolanda and Martin Worth, twin of Preston. MBA from Wharton at twenty-three. VP of Operations at SunView at twenty-six. Brother Preston’s title was loftier—Chief Financial Officer—but organizationally apparently equivalent to Presley’s. Twins, still. Father was CEO, mother COO. High-powered, influential family. Presley had never married, supported humanitarian causes, and appeared to have no personal life beyond attending the obligatory charitable and business functions. What she did have was a record of successfully spearheading much of the expansion of SunView Health Systems from a regional Southwest healthcare network into a transcontinental consortium of hospitals, short-and long-term-care facilities, and allied enterprises. Harper hadn’t been able to find out much more than that, but she wasn’t done digging yet. If SunView was to be her new employer, she wanted to know who—or, more accurately, what—it was all about.

On impulse, she bypassed the stairs and turned down the east corridor toward admin, wondering if her father might be in the staff office catching up on paperwork as he often did early in the morning. His door was partly open and the light on, and she started in, expecting to hear his voice as he dictated reports or discharge summaries. She drew up short, remembering too late the office wasn’t his any longer.

“If you’re sure you can find it, call me when you get settled,” Presley said. “I’ll show you around and get you started on the staff assessments…About what you might expect. An abundance of dinosaurs.”

Harper halted, unable not to hear the conversation.

Presley laughed. “Around here, putting out to pasture is more than a metaphor…See you soon.”

Harper knocked on the door, refusing to skulk away as if she’d intentionally been eavesdropping. She wasn’t surprised by Presley’s view of the Rivers as provincial and old-fashioned, considering the circles she usually moved in, but the snap judgment irked all the same. Traditional didn’t mean outdated.

“Come in,” Presley called.

Harper pushed the door wide and Presley rose behind her desk. She glanced at her watch when she saw Harper.

“I’m sorry, am I late? I thought you said—”

“No, I just happened to be here.”

Presley wore another understatedly elegant suit, a pale green shirt over rich chocolate trousers. The jacket hung over the back of what had been Harper’s father’s chair. Her golden-blond hair was held back with a paler gold tie. She looked crisp and efficient and commanding. She should have looked out of place, but somehow she didn’t. She wore authority well, and that confidence was compelling. Harper slid her hands into the pockets of her slightly rumpled khakis. Presley was studying her in turn. Her gaze, acute and unapologetic, traveled over Harper’s face. Harper wondered what she was looking for, and what she saw.

“Do you do this often?” Harper asked.

Presley leaned forward, her fingertips resting on the surface of the desk, her gaze holding Harper’s. “What, exactly?”

“Take over hospitals?”

“We acquire new facilities several times a year,” Presley said.

“And then what do you do with them?”

“I plan to provide a prospectus of SunView’s activities that I think will give you a better understanding of who we are.” She frowned slightly. “I’m afraid the lines of communication haven’t been handled as well as they should have been regarding this acquisition. I wasn’t in charge of the initial negotiations. So I apologize for the lack of information. I plan to rectify that as soon as possible.”

“If you weren’t in charge, who was?”

“Another department,” Presley said coolly.

“So why apologize?”

“Because I’m here now, and I am in charge.”

Harper appreciated Presley’s refusal to pass the buck, whether out of loyalty or sense of responsibility. Both counted in her book. “I understand. It’s sort of like here.”

“I’m sorry?”

Harper grinned wryly. “The board kept this quiet until the deal was done.”

“I can assure you, Dr. Rivers—”

“Harper.”

Presley nodded. “Harper. None of this was undertaken with the intention of secrecy. SunView dealt with those who controlled the financial—”

“So I was told. But there’s more to us than facts and figures, you know.”

“I know,” Presley said.

“Do you?”

“I will.”

Harper knew the heart of the Rivers wasn’t going to be found in the ledgers and balance sheets, and she wanted this woman, this stranger who seemed to hold the fate of a big part of the community in her hands, to know that too. “Let’s postpone the tour. Make rounds with me this morning instead. Get a look at what the hospital is really like out from behind that desk.”

Presley’s first instinct was to refuse. She had just started delving into the financials and had the entire day planned out. Carrie was on her way to the house from the airport and ought to be at the hospital by midmorning. She didn’t really have time for anything other than a quick survey of the physical layout. And what could she possibly learn from trailing after Harper while she visited patients?

“Don’t you think the patients would find that an intrusion?”

“If there’s anything sensitive, we’ll ask their permission. But I doubt it.”

“I really don’t have—”

“How can you run a healthcare system and not know what it is that we really do?”

Presley stifled her irritation. The question just underscored how little she and Harper had in common. One didn’t need to know how an airplane engine worked to run Boeing, or understand nanomaterials to manage IBM. That was what the technical departments were for. “Running a hospital profitably occurs on a different plane than dispensing care. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were happy accepting chickens in payment for your services, but most of us have moved beyond that now.”

“Right. Because I’m one of the dinosaurs.”

“Ah.” Presley glanced at the open door. No one had been around when she’d arrived before dawn, and she’d been careless. She wouldn’t let that happen again. There was no point apologizing, not that she was inclined to. Her assessment of the staff, no matter how flip, was also accurate. The physicians with admitting privileges were an aging group with the exception of a handful like Harper and Flannery. Most were well beyond retirement age and, she was willing to bet when she looked at their statistics, probably had a preponderance of elderly patients with few resources who overstayed the recommended average, putting a strain on the hospital’s resources and lowering the reimbursement quotient.

“I wasn’t actually thinking of you with that remark.”

Harper shrugged. “I have been known to take a dozen eggs now and then.”

Presley laughed. “I completely believe that.”

“You can be pretty sure I mean what I say.”

“I suspect that’s a family trait.”

“Among others.”

Presley put her laptop to sleep. Transitions always went more smoothly when the hospital’s power brokers were cooperative. Harper Rivers—the whole Rivers family—was enmeshed with the hospital and the community. Antagonizing any of them was not prudent. If spending an hour tagging along with Harper would help, she’d make room in her schedule.

She slipped into her jacket and slid her cell phone into her pocket. “All right, Dr. Rivers. Educate me.”

*

Harper hadn’t expected Presley to agree. She’d seen the indecision in her eyes and could almost read the dismissal in her mind. Hiding her surprise when Presley joined her, she led the way back to the main hospital building, pointing out the administrative offices as they passed.

“The head of admissions is over here,” Harper said, pointing to the door to her sister’s office. “Carson should be in around eight. She can tell you just about anything you need to know about hospital visits, admission stats, placement, that sort of thing. She deals with social services pretty regularly as well.”