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.
Rebecca did not smile.
She did not forgive.
She did not explain what kind of woman survives betrayal from a hospital bed.
She only turned her head toward Nora.
“Call the vineyard manager,” she whispered.
Nora leaned close.
“What should I tell him?”
Rebecca’s fingers curled around her hospital bracelet.
“The money stops today.”
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