It was midnight when I finally got home to my apartment in Murray Hill. I had an early shift starting at 6 am and fell into bed but had little success falling asleep. I ended up tossing and turning until 5 am. Finally, I gave up, threw my scrubs into my work bag, and went into the hospital. Mercifully, the ER was quiet that morning. The trauma bay was empty except for a mother here to pick up her son, who had been brought in overnight for breaking an arm while at a rave party on14th street.

I got myself the biggest cup of black coffee I could find from a nearby McDonald's and sat down to start my day. Brisden's folder rested tucked away at the bottom of my workbag, but I didn't touch it. I wanted nothing to do with it. Somehow, while I was here in my quiet little office, with my squeaky old revolving chair and outdated computer, I could pretend that last night was a dream.

A knock came at my office door, and I nearly jumped out of my skin as though a mafia goon was at my door. If a patient needed me, the staff would page or call me.

"Who is it?" I croaked out. Instantly, I was jolted back to the dark alleyway, and I was sure a hitman was here to put a bullet in my head.

The door opened a crack.

"So?" a cheerful female voice emerged from the other side. "How was it?"

I breathed a sigh of relief. It was Maggie, or rather Dr. Margaret Lin, the internist who I least hated out of the bunch.

"Did you meet any good ones at the speed-dating event? Tell me everything. Wow, look at those circles under your eyes. Someone sure had a wild night."

"No," I angrily waved away her speculations. Maggie and I had been friends for the last few years because we were both perpetually single. Perhaps that made us the leftovers among our friends who were all married with children. At least that meant we had more money left over for shoes. "I didn't meet anyone worth seeing again."

"Oh, come on, you must have met a single guy you liked. Weren't there at least 30 dudes to check out?"

"No."

"Lye, what did we resolve on New Year's Eve? We are going to approach this dating thing with open minds this year."

"Okay, okay," I sighed wearily. I just wanted her to leave me alone so I could rest my eyes a little before my first patient showed up. "I met a single dad. He was fine. Good-looking but unavailable."

"Ex-wife still in the picture? Oh, yeah, toss that one back. Too much baggage. You need a nice fresh one, not someone else's donated goods."

I rolled my eyes. "I've been married before, you know. Technically, I'm also used goods."

"That's different!" Maggie insisted with a shrug of her narrow bird-like shoulders and a hearty laugh. "You and Ashlen made a clean break. After all this time, you're practically like a relationship born-again virgin."

I didn't want to hear that word. Ashlen. Perhaps my emotions were written all over my sullen, emotionally exhausted face because instead of leaving, Maggie pulled up a chair and plopped across from me.

"What's up? Did something happen last night? With your ex?"

So, the cat was out of the bag. My poker face needed work, serious work, if I had any hope of making it out of this criminal entanglement alive.

"I saw Ashlen last night," I confessed to make Maggie go away and leave me alone. "He was with someone, a new girl. We didn't talk. I don't even know if he spared a second thought at the sight of me. But, all the same, it is wrecking my mood today."

Maggie was stunned into silence. I knew that she was feeling sorry for me. I didn't even know how pathetic it seemed before blurting out that tidbit. Yes, my ex-husband, who abandoned me, was out on a date on Valentine's Day with his new flame and happened to bump into me while I was engaged in a very unsuccessful round of speed dating. That was not quite the way it happened last night, but it was enough for Maggie to pretend to check her cell phone and immediately excuse herself because Mrs. Smith in the ICU had pulled out her PEG tube by accident again.

I was grateful for the silence after Maggie left, but as I sat in my lonely, depressing corner, I suddenly wished I could have shared more. I wish I could have broken down and shed some tears. Maybe I could lock myself in the janitor's closet and have a good cry like they did on Grey's Anatomy.

Work started to pick up at 7 am. I had to ready myself for the influx of patients to the trauma bay as the less-than-urgent cases began to arrive in the ED now that the sun was up. I barely had a chance before lunch to thumb through the packet Briden handed me last night. From the brief glimpse I caught at the contents, it was a running list of the crimes connected to my ex-husband. There were crime scene photographs of the dismembered bodies and weapons used to take out various lesser crime lords all over Manhattan. Gore didn't scare me, but I remained in shock. These could have been pictures from a TV show for all it meant to me.

The husband in my memory and these pictures seemed to come from two different worlds. There were moments when I wondered if this was all an elaborate prank. How could anything like this possibly happen in reality?

Could it really be that while I was saving the lives of so many victims of gunshots, my husband had been out calling the shots?

At half past noon, I finally had a moment to sit down in my office and catch a breather from rounding on my patients from earlier this week. My pager immediately went off. I picked up the phone. It was the ER front desk secretary. Why would they call me directly instead of reaching out to my PA first?

"Dr. Rhodes? There's someone here to see you." I heard the sound of laughter as though there was a party at the front desk. "There's a very charming gentleman who is asking for you personally. You never told us you were married."