Chapter 17 - The Hospital Hallway
Emma was not shot.
The bullet struck the dock railing.
She hit her head when she fell and needed six stitches above her eyebrow, but she was alive.
Daniel was arrested with a dislocated shoulder and an expression of pure hatred.
Police found Victoria thirty minutes later inside a locked cabin on a boat two slips away.
She was alive too.
Bruised, furious, and ready to talk.
Nathan sat outside Emma’s hospital room at two in the morning with dried rain on his shirt.
Rachel brought coffee.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“I feel worse.”
“Good.”
Nathan looked at her.
Rachel sat beside him. “You need to feel some of it. Not all forever. But some.”
He looked through the small window in Emma’s door.
She was sleeping.
“I missed everything,” he said.
“You missed too much.”
“I thought providing was enough.”
“It isn’t.”
“I know that now.”
Rachel studied him. “Do you?”
Nathan looked down at his hands.
“Claire died, and I decided work was the one place where I knew what to do. So I worked. Every flight, every deal, every hotel room made me feel like I was still useful.”
“And the girls?”
“I told myself they were safe because they were home.”
Rachel’s expression softened only slightly. “A house isn’t the same thing as a home.”
He nodded.
The door opened.
Emma stood there in borrowed hospital clothes with a white bandage above her eye.
“You’re both terrible at whispering,” she said.
Rachel smiled and walked away.
Nathan rose.
Emma leaned against the doorway.
“Daniel was wrong,” Nathan said.
“About a lot of things.”
“About you being disposable.”
She looked at him.
“I owe you more than I can explain.”
“I don’t want to be owed.”
“Then what do you want?”
Emma thought for a moment. “I want those girls to stop being afraid of making noise in their own house.”
Nathan’s throat tightened.
“They will.”
“And I want you to stop disappearing every time life hurts.”
He looked at her carefully.
“That one might take practice.”
“Then practice.”
For the first time in two days, Nathan smiled.
His phone rang.
Detective Mills.
Nathan answered.
“We have a problem,” Mills said.
“What problem?”
“Victoria is talking.”
“That sounds useful.”
“It would be, except she says Daniel wasn’t the person who created the forged trust amendment.”
Nathan’s smile disappeared.
“Who did?”
Mills hesitated.
“According to her, Claire’s attorney did.”
May you like
Nathan turned slowly toward Rachel.
“Theodore Banks.”
