Chapter 4
Mrs. Bell appeared in the doorway. She held an old hospice visitor log against her chest.
Audrey’s face changed immediately.
Mrs. Bell looked at Sebastian. “Catherine left something with me.”
Sebastian’s body went rigid.
Audrey stepped forward. “You do not have to give him anything.”
“I know.”
Mrs. Bell surprised them both by placing the book in Sebastian’s hands. Inside was an envelope with his name written across it in Catherine’s handwriting.
His fingers tightened around the paper. For fourteen months, he had wanted one final answer from his sister. Now it was in his hands.
Audrey quietly turned away. She was giving him privacy.
Sebastian opened the envelope.
There was only one sentence inside.
If Audrey kept her promise, then you still do not understand why I was afraid to come home.
Sebastian read Catherine’s sentence twice. Then he folded the paper and put it back into the envelope.
Audrey was already halfway down the corridor. He could have called her back. He could have demanded the rest of Catherine’s story.
Instead, a crash sounded from the front entrance.
A man in a work jacket had shoved past the receptionist and was tearing evacuation notices from a leather folder.
“You have until six,” he shouted. “The waterfront wing gets cleared tonight.”
Sebastian reached the lobby before his security man crossed the street. He did not raise his voice.
“Who sent you?”
The man looked at him and immediately reconsidered whatever performance he had planned.
Sebastian took the folder from his hand. Malcolm’s coalition had pressured the building insurer into withdrawing temporary coverage from one wing. The legal language did not matter. Seven sick people would lose their rooms before dark.
Audrey appeared beside Sebastian. “Can you stop it?”
Sebastian studied the notice. Yes. That answer came easily. The cost did not.
He could force three calls, lean on the insurer, and make the problem disappear. But Malcolm wanted exactly that. Another display of Ror pressure would make the hospice look like a charitable front protected by intimidation. Sebastian could save the rooms tonight and damage Audrey’s credibility tomorrow.
For once, power had two prices.
Audrey saw him calculating. “Do not win this in a way that leaves me paying for it later.”
His eyes lifted to hers. The sentence struck deeper than she knew. Catherine had once accused him of the same thing.
Sebastian made his decision.
“We move them ourselves.”
For the next three hours, the most feared man on the waterfront carried lamps, oxygen stands, blankets, and boxes of family photographs into the hospice’s older east wing. He did not summon reporters. He did not call Malcolm. He simply reorganized the building with the ruthless efficiency he normally reserved for operations involving millions of dollars.
Audrey worked beside him. When a narrow hospital bed jammed in a doorway, Sebastian lifted one end while Audrey guided the wheels. Her fingers brushed his. Neither moved away immediately.
It was only a second. But Sebastian felt the absence when she pulled back.
Near sunset, they moved Mrs. Bell last. She became frightened halfway down the corridor. Audrey reached for her, but exhaustion betrayed her. Her knees nearly buckled.
Sebastian caught Audrey at the waist. His hand tightened instinctively, then loosened. He waited. Audrey could step away.
She did not.
For one quiet moment, her weight rested against him. Sebastian felt how tired she was. Not fragile. Tired. There was a difference, and suddenly it mattered to him.
Mrs. Bell smiled faintly. “Catherine trusted you both,” she said.
Audrey stiffened. Sebastian felt it. He did not ask what she meant.
That surprised Audrey more than any question could have.
By six, all seven residents were settled safely. Sebastian’s phone showed eleven missed calls. He ignored ten. The eleventh was from his lieutenant.
Malcolm had released another photograph. This one showed Audrey meeting Catherine outside the hospice three days before Catherine died.
Sebastian stared at it. Audrey saw the image over his shoulder.
Something in her face closed.
“You met her after she left here,” Sebastian said.
“Yes.”
The old instinct surged. “Where?”
Audrey stepped away from his hand. “I cannot tell you.”
The words hit exactly where Malcolm intended. Sebastian looked at Catherine’s photograph. Then at the woman he had begun noticing when she was not beside him.
May you like
This time, he did not accuse her.
But Audrey saw the battle in his silence.
