Page 79 of The Final Cut

I read it twice. Then a third time. The words do what they are supposed to do and still fail to reach the place in me that keeps imagining Cal waking alone, confused, with strangers touching tubes and machines. Shiloh is there. Nash’s men are there. Deacon has already killed one of Isabel’s girls for trying to get too close.

Cal is not alone.

I place the phone on the table with more care than necessary.

Ever glances over. “Cal?”

“Stable.”

His shoulders relax. “Good.”

“Good might be stretching.”

He doesn’t argue.

A door opens upstairs. Low voices move through the cabin, then footsteps come down the hall. Two sets. One measured and heavy enough to be Nash. One nearly silent until the last few feet, when the floor gives him away.

Nash steps into the war room first.

He looks like the night wore him down and then thought better of finishing the job. Dark coat damp with rain. Hair pushed back. Jaw rough. His eyes find me immediately, take inventory, and move on only after deciding I am in one piece.

Deacon comes in behind him, in black from throat to boots, a folded piece of paper in one hand. His gaze moves to Homer, then to me.

“Little ghost.”

“Did you bring my sister?”

“Not tonight.”

My chest squeezes. “So you…found a way?”

Nash closes the door. “We found a way to get her. I think.”

Every loose, frantic thing inside me goes still at once.

Homer tries to climb higher, sensing the emotional weather and choosing self-preservation. I set him on the floor. He trots under the table and sits on Ever’s boot.

Traitor.

I stand. “Tell me.”

Nash looks at Ever. “Shiloh?”

“At the hospital. Cal’s stable. No new access attempts. Two of your men are outside the ICU, one in the stairwell, one near the nurses’ station. I have eyes on three angles and a trigger on his chart access.”

Nash nods. “Good.”

“Delia,” I say.

His attention comes back to me. “Sabine confirmed she’s alive.”

The first breath leaves me too fast. “Has she hurt her?”

“Might have bruised her a little. She’s being watched closely. No confirmed breaks or major injuries.”

No confirmed. Those two words make me feel sick. What the hell is Isabel doing to Delia—carefully, privately, where eyes can’t see?

Deacon lays the paper on the table and smooths it with two fingers. A schedule. I recognize none of the names, but the shape of it is familiar from every hospital and event board I have ever seen. Times. Routes. Initials. A luncheon. A foundation. Sainte Aurelia.