Chapter Five
Julien
I didn’t have time for this.
I didn’t have time for lost gypsies who couldn’t watch where they were going. I didn’t have time for apologies about “the lights” and “the energy” and whatever cosmic nonsense she’d been babbling about. I didn’t have time for any of this.
I had thirteen minutes.
Thirteen minutes to check into the Venetian, drop off my luggage, find the conference room, and deliver a TED Talk that I’d meticulously prepared for. A talk that was supposed to showcase the clinic’s research. A talk that Quinton and the others would never let me live down if I missed.
Thirteen minutes, and no time to spare on lost women.
This was not how today was supposed to go.
Today was supposed to be simple. Straightforward.
I’d mapped it out with the same precision I used for surgical procedures: flight from Hartford to Denver at 6:47 AM, layover of exactly ninety-three minutes, enough time to get coffee and review my notes, connecting flight to Las Vegas arriving at 12:15 PM local time.
Check into the Venetian by 1:00 PM. Review the slides one final time.
Arrive at the conference room by 2:45 PM for the 3:00 PM talk.
Simple. Efficient. Foolproof.
Except for the universe, or more accurately, United Airlines had other plans.
“Mechanical malfunction,” the gate agent said with the kind of apologetic smile that suggested she’d delivered this news a thousand times before and had long since stopped caring. “We’re working on rebooking everyone.”
“When’s the next flight?” I asked, already knowing the answer would be unacceptable.
“Tomorrow morning at 6:15.”
“Tomorrow? I have a presentation today. In Las Vegas. At three o’clock.”
She typed something into her computer with the enthusiasm of someone filing their own death certificate. “I’m sorry, sir. That’s the earliest available flight. Unless you’d like to try standby on the 4:30 to Phoenix with a connection to...”
“That gets me there at midnight.”
“Yes, sir.”
I stood there, feeling my carefully constructed schedule crumbling around me like a sandcastle at high tide. Then I did something I never did.
I improvised.
“Fine. Cancel the flight. I’ll drive.”
The gate agent blinked at me. “Sir, Las Vegas is over seven hundred miles from Denver.”
“I’m aware.”
“That’s at least a ten-hour drive.”
“I’m aware.”
I’d rented a car—a process that took forty-five minutes because apparently, “I need a car immediately” wasn’t a concept the rental company was familiar with—and started driving.
I’d made good time, too. Excellent time. I’d calculated that if I maintained a steady seventy-five miles per hour and stopped only once for gas and a bathroom break, I could make it to Las Vegas by 2:30 PM. Fifteen minutes to spare.
I’d been on schedule. On pace. Everything was going according to my revised plan.
And then I’d seen the flashing lights in my rearview mirror.
“Do you know why I pulled you over?” the state trooper had asked, leaning against my window with the casual authority of someone who’d asked this question ten thousand times.
“No, officer, I don’t.” And I’d meant it. I’d been going exactly seventy-five miles per hour. The speed limit was seventy-five miles per hour. I’d checked. Multiple times.
“You were going eighty-two in a seventy-five.”
“That’s impossible. My cruise control was set to seventy-five.”
“Cruise control can drift, sir. Especially on downhill grades.”
“I was monitoring my speed. I’m always monitoring my speed.”
He’d given me a look that suggested he’d heard this before, too. “License and registration, please.”
Three hundred dollars.
Three hundred dollars for a speeding violation I didn’t commit, on a day when everything had already gone catastrophically wrong, while racing to make a presentation I never wanted to give in the first place.
By the time he’d handed back my license, I’d lost forty-five minutes.
I’d driven the rest of the way in a state of barely controlled fury, recalculating my arrival time every five minutes and watching my buffer evaporate like water in the desert.
I’d pulled up to the Venetian at 2:45 PM.
Fifteen minutes.
I’d abandoned the rental car with the valet, practically throwing the keys at him, and that was when I’d collided with her.
The woman who apparently thought Las Vegas was some kind of spiritual theme park. Who’d grabbed my arm to “steady me” when I was the one who’d been standing still. Who’d tried to apologize while simultaneously explaining that she’d been distracted by “the lights” and “an Elvis” and “the energy.”
I’d looked at her, really looked at her for half a second and seen exactly what I’d expected: flowing skirt, oversized bag probably full of crystals or tarot cards or whatever, wide eyes that suggested she’d never had a coherent thought in her life.
“You should watch where you’re going,” I’d said, because someone needed to tell her.
She’d started babbling something about energy and intensity, and I’d realized with perfect clarity that I didn’t have time for this conversation.
“I don’t have time for this,” I’d muttered, and walked away.
Now, standing at the front desk with eleven minutes to spare, I was regretting not walking away faster.
“I’m checking in,” I told the desk clerk, sliding my ID across the counter. “Julien Darcy. I have a reservation.”
She typed something into her computer. Frowned. Typed something else.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Darcy, but your check-in time was 1:00 PM. We released your room at 2:00 PM because of our no-show policy.”
I felt something inside me crack. Just a little. Just enough.
“I called,” I said, very carefully. “I called from the road and explained that I’d been delayed. I spoke to someone named Marcus, who assured me the room would be held.”
“Let me check with my manager.”
“I don’t have time for you to check with your manager. I have a presentation in”—I glanced at my watch—“nine minutes. I need to leave my bag here and go. Now.”
To her credit, she didn’t argue. “Of course, sir. I’ll hold your bag at the bell desk, and we’ll sort out the room situation after your presentation.”
“Thank you.”
I shoved my bag across the counter, turned, and ran.
The conference room was on the third floor. I took the stairs two at a time, my dress shoes slapping against the marble with enough force to echo through the stairwell. My jacket flapped behind me. My tie was probably crooked. I didn’t care.
I burst through the doors at exactly 2:58 PM.
The moderator, a woman in her fifties with severe glasses and an even more severe expression, looked up from her notes. “Dr. Darcy?”
“Present,” I said, slightly out of breath.
“We were beginning to worry.”
“Flight was canceled. I drove from Denver.”
Her eyebrows rose slightly. “That’s dedication.”
“That’s a contractual obligation to my colleagues who will make my life hell if I don’t do this.”
She almost smiled. “Well. You’re here now. Are you ready?”
I straightened my tie, smoothed down my jacket, and took a deep breath.
Was I ready? I had prepared my talk. I’d rehearsed it seventeen times. I knew every slide, every transition, every pause for emphasis. I’d timed it down to the second.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m ready.”
“Excellent. You’re on in two minutes.”
I walked to the side of the stage, watching as the moderator took the podium and began her introduction. The conference room was packed with at least two hundred people, maybe more. Medical professionals, researchers, students. All here for the annual Neurological Advances Summit.
All here to listen to me talk about something I actually cared about.
“... and it’s my pleasure to introduce Dr. Julien Darcy, a neurosurgeon at Clinically Approved in New Haven, Connecticut.
Dr. Darcy’s research focuses on minimally invasive techniques for treating traumatic brain injuries, and his work has been published in several leading journals. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Darcy.”
Applause.
I walked onto the stage, and everything else fell away.
This—this—was my element. Not small talk. Not social events. Not bumping into distracted women in casino lobbies. This was controlled. Structured. Purposeful.
This, I could do.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice steady and clear. “I’m going to talk to you today about the future of neurosurgery... specifically, how recent advances in imaging technology and surgical techniques are allowing us to treat conditions that were previously considered inoperable.”
I clicked to the first slide: a 3D rendering of the human brain, color-coded by region.
“The brain is the most complex organ in the human body. Eighty-six billion neurons, each one connected to thousands of others, creating a network of staggering complexity. For decades, neurosurgery was a blunt instrument; we could remove tumors, repair damage, but always at a cost. Always with collateral damage to surrounding tissue.”
I clicked to the next slide: a comparison of traditional surgical approaches versus minimally invasive techniques.
“But in the last ten years, we’ve seen a revolution.
New imaging technologies, along with functional MRI, diffusion tensor imaging, and intraoperative CT, allow us to map the brain with unprecedented precision.
We can see not just where a tumor is, but what it’s connected to.
What functions it’s affecting. What we can safely remove and what we can’t. ”
I was warming up now, falling into the rhythm of the presentation. This was what I did. This was what I was good at.
“Let me show you a case study...”
I clicked to the next slide, and the doors at the back of the conference room opened.
I barely noticed. People came and went during presentations all the time. Late arrivals, early departures, bathroom breaks.
But something made me look up.
And there she was.
The lost gypsy from the lobby.
She was scanning the room, her eyes wide and searching, as if she were looking for someone. Or something. Her bag was still slung over her shoulder, and she was wearing the same flowing skirt that had nearly tripped me earlier.
She looked completely out of place in a room full of medical professionals in business attire.
She looked as if she’d wandered into the wrong conference entirely.
And she was walking down the center aisle, still looking around, apparently oblivious to the fact that I was mid-sentence.
I stopped talking.
Two hundred pairs of eyes turned to look at her.
She froze, finally seeming to realize that she’d just walked into the middle of a presentation.
“Oh,” she said, her voice carrying in the sudden silence. “Sorry. I’m just... I’m looking for...”
She looked up at the stage.
Our eyes met.
And I watched, with a sinking feeling of inevitability, as her face broke into a smile of absolute delight.
“It’s you!” she said.