Then today’s date stamped in red.
Emergency asset protection activated.
Rebecca touched the edge of the page with two fingers.
Her hands were weak. Her nails were pale. The IV tape still pulled her skin.
But the paper did not move without her.
Caleb saw it.
That was when his face finally broke.
Not into tears.
Into recognition.
He had not married a dying woman.
He had tried to bury the only person who could lock every door before he reached it.
Detective Cole guided him toward the hall.
As he passed the bed, Rebecca smelled his cologne beneath the antiseptic and lemon. Expensive. Familiar. Rotten now.
He paused at the threshold.
Vanessa’s name flashed on his phone screen from inside his pocket, buzzing again and again.
No one let him answer.
Nora stepped to Rebecca’s bedside after the door closed. Her rough hand hovered over Rebecca’s blanket, careful of the IV.
“I pulled the rest from the pantry,” she said. “And the garden shed. He hid some behind the fertilizer.”
Rebecca nodded once.
Her throat worked around the question she had been afraid to ask.
“Was I too late?”
Dr. Harris looked at the monitor, then at her chart, then back at her.
“No,” he said. “But we’re not wasting another hour.”
At 4:02 p.m., the nurses came in to move her.
The hallway outside her room was no longer empty. Two hospital administrators stood near the nurses’ station. Another officer waited by the elevator. Attorney Whitaker was on the phone, speaking in a voice so calm it made every sentence sound final.
Rebecca was rolled past the room door just as Detective Cole walked Caleb toward the elevator.
His wrists were not cuffed in front of everyone.
Not yet.
But his hands were held low, his shoulders stiff, his face gray under the fluorescent lights.
For one second, their eyes met.
