OUT OF THE CORNER of his eye he could just see the monitor. The screen was grainy silver and black, the heart like an undulating ghost, the rivets and staples that closed off blood vessels showing like black buckshot in his chest.

“Almost there,” a voice said.

It came from behind his right ear. Bonnie Fox. Always calm and comforting, professional. Soon he saw the snaking line of the scope move into the monitor’s X-ray field, following the path of the artery and entering the heart. He closed his eyes. He hated the tug, the one they say you won’t feel but you always do.

“Okay, you shouldn’t feel this,” she said.

“Right.”

“Don’t talk.”

Then, there it was. Like the slightest tug on the end of a fishing line, a scrap fish stealing your bait. He opened his eyes and saw the line of the scope, as thin as a fishing line, still deep in the heart.

“Okay, we got it,” she said. “Coming out now. You did good, Terry.”

He felt her pat his shoulder, though he couldn’t turn his head to look at her. The scope was removed and she taped a gauze compress against the incision in his neck. The brace that had held his head at such an uncomfortable angle was unstrapped and he slowly straightened his neck, bringing his hand up to work the stiff muscles. Dr. Bonnie Fox’s smiling face then hovered above his.

“How you feeling?”

“Can’t complain. Now that it’s over.”

“I’ll see you in a little while. I want to check the blood work and get the tissue over to the lab.”

“I want to talk to you about something.”

“You got it. See you in a bit.”

A few minutes later two nurses wheeled McCaleb’s bed out of the cath lab and into an elevator. He hated being treated as an invalid. He could have walked but it was against the rules. After a heart biopsy the patient must be kept horizontal. Hospitals always have rules. Cedars-Sinai seemed to have more than most.