“What letter?”

“The one everybody writes afterward. The anonymous thank you note to the family of your donor. The one the hospital mails. She had mine. I looked at it and it’s mine. I remember what I wrote.”

“This is not supposed to happen, Terry. What does she want? Money?”

“No, not money. Don’t you see? She wants me to find out who did it. Who killed her sister. The cops never closed it. It’s two months later and no arrest. She knows they’ve given up. Then she sees this story about me in the paper, about what I used to do for the bureau. She figures out I got her sister’s heart and thinks maybe I can do what the cops apparently can’t. Break the case. She spent an hour walking around the San Pedro marinas looking for my boat Saturday. All she had was the name of the boat from the paper. She came looking for me.”

“This is crazy. Give me this woman’s name and I’ll-”

“No. I don’t want you to do anything to her. Think if you were her and you loved your sister. You’d do what she did, too.”

Fox got off the bed, a wide-eyed look on her face.

“You’re not actually thinking of doing this.”

She said it as a statement, a doctor’s order. He didn’t answer and that in itself was an answer. He could see anger once again working itself into Fox’s expression.

“Listen to me. You are in no condition to be doing anything like this. You are sixty days post-transplant surgery and you want to run around playing detective?”

“I’m only thinking about it, okay? I told her I’d think about it. I know the risks. I also know that I’m not an FBI agent anymore. It would be a whole different thing.”

Fox angrily folded her thin arms across her chest.

“You shouldn’t even be thinking about it. As your doctor, I am telling you not to do this. That’s an order.”

Her voice then changed in tone and softened.

“You have to respect the gift you were given, Terry. This second chance.”

“But that respect goes two ways. If I didn’t have her heart, I’d be dead by now. I owe her. It’s that-”