Page 141 of The Final Cut

“Yank,” I say softly.

She looks at me, but I am not sure she sees me. Her gaze moves past my shoulder to the bed, and whatever is left of her expression breaks.

I stand at once.

Deacon’s eyes meet mine over her head. His face tells me very little, which is useful in most cases but infuriating in this one. Earlier, before my first shift, he told me only enough to keep me from putting a bullet in the wrong person.

Marisol Hart is alive.

Let her visit if she comes back.

That was it. Deacon Cross, patron saint of missing details, left me with a dead woman breathing and a girl I love walking toward a truth sharp enough to cut the whole night open.

Reva crosses to Cal’s bed without speaking.

I want to touch her, but I keep my hands to myself. She looks held together by one thin wire, and I cannot tell whether kindness would steady her or snap it. Instead, I step back and let her take my place beside him.

She picks up Cal’s hand in both of hers, and her shoulders fold inward.

Deacon stays by the door, body angled toward the hall, one hand low at his side. He is pale beneath the fluorescent light, probably bleeding again under that clean shirt because the man is about as careful and sedate as Homer.

“What happened?” I ask him under my breath.

His gaze stays on Reva. “She saw her.”

“No shit. I got that far.”

His jaw shifts.

Reva bends over Cal’s hand, whispering something I cannot hear. It is private enough that I turn away.

Deacon finally looks at me. “Stay with her.”

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere.”

The lie is clean and immediate. I admire craft, even when it insults me.

I glance through the interior window blinds, toward the dim hall and the older wing beyond it. The chapel sits that way. I saw the woman go that direction earlier.

“Fine,” I say. “You stay with her, then.”

His eyes narrow.

I smile without feeling a drop of charm. “Cal has two Blackwood men in the hall, one nurse I trust because she told me to stop flirting and sit down, and you standing there looking like murder found religion. I’m going for a walk.”

“Shiloh—”

“No.”

Reva doesn’t look up from Cal. I leave before Deacon can decide whether stopping me is worth the noise.

The chapel door is closed when I reach it.

For a second, I stand in the hallway and let my palm rest flat against the wood. Hospitals have a particular kind of silence at night, padded and mechanical, every sound softened by exhaustion. Somewhere, an elevator dings. A nurse laughs once at the station and cuts herself off quickly.

In front of me, Marisol Hart sits with answers she has no right to keep.