Monica was afraid of that key.
I knew it before I ever met her.
She arrived at the hospital in a camel coat, expensive boots, and the kind of perfect makeup that survives other people’s emergencies. She didn’t rush to Eli’s room. She stopped at the nurses’ station first and demanded to know who had authorized contact with “outside parties.” That phrase told me everything I needed to know about her priorities.
When she finally saw me in Eli’s room, Atlas stretched across the foot of the bed and gave one low, steady growl.
Monica’s smile never reached her eyes. “And who exactly are you?”
“Daniel Mercer,” I said. “I found him.”
She barely glanced at Eli. “Thank you. My stepson has been acting out since his father’s death. He gets confused.”
Eli turned his face into the pillow.
That movement hit me harder than shouting would have.
A social worker named Rebecca Lin arrived twenty minutes later, and the second she began asking questions, Monica’s whole tone changed. Suddenly she was the grieving widow, the overwhelmed caretaker, the woman tragically burdened by a difficult child who “hallucinates under stress.” I had seen suspects shape-shift like that in interview rooms for years.
Rebecca saw it too.
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