I was awake before I opened my eyes.

Heart monitor. Hospital smell. Bleach and bad coffee and something underneath that's supposed to be clean but isn't. Someone breathing too close to my bed.

I opened my eyes. Left arm in a cast. IV in my right hand. And Daniel was sitting right there.

My husband. He looked like hell. Stubble, wrinkled shirt, red eyes. Holding a paper coffee cup with a hand that wasn't shaking.

He looked exactly like a man whose daughter just died in a car accident. He'd been practicing.

"Mrs. Quinn?" A doctor stepped forward. "I'm Dr. Amari. You were in a car accident. You sustained a traumatic brain injury. Can you tell me what you remember?"

I remembered everything.

I remembered slamming the brake and getting nothing. The pedal went straight to the floor like it wasn't connected to anything. I reached behind me for Lily. Found her ankle through the car seat strap. Warm skin. Tiny bones. Her little sock halfway off the way it always was.

That was the last time I touched my daughter.

Then the truck. Then nothing. Then this room and this man sitting next to my bed like he deserved to be there.

I remembered the invoice I found in Daniel's desk three days before the crash. Brake service. Per customer request — rush. On my car. The car he never drove.

I remembered the phone call I made to Dr. Vasquez the week before that. About Daniel's research. About numbers that didn't match. And the way Daniel looked at me across the dinner table after he found out I'd called. Quiet. Still. Deciding something.

Three days later my brakes didn't work.

I looked at my husband.

"Who are you?"

He relaxed. Just for a second. Shoulders dropped, jaw loosened. Then he caught himself and put the worried face back on.

"I'm Daniel," he said. He reached for my hand. "Your husband."

I let him take it. His palm was dry. Steady. Not a single tremor.

I blinked at him. Let my face go confused. Scared. Lost.

The scared part was real. Just not for the reasons he thought.

"I don't remember," I said. My voice cracked. I let it. "I don't remember anything."

He pulled the blanket up over my shoulder. Tucked it in. Like I was a child.

"That's okay," he said. "We have time."

That made two of us.

Dr. Amari ran his tests for forty minutes. Light in my eyes. What year is it. Who's the president. Where do you live. I gave him what he needed. Confused enough to be real. Not so blank that it looked like acting.

I spent five years managing Daniel's research data. I know what a believable result looks like. And I know how to build one.

"Retrograde amnesia," Dr. Amari told Daniel in the hallway. He thought I couldn't hear. The door was cracked two inches. "She may recover memories over time, or she may not. The brain is protective. No way to predict."

Protective. That was one word for it.

I watched through the window. When the doctor said amnesia, Daniel's whole body changed. Shoulders came down. He leaned on the wall and let out this long breath like he'd been holding it since the crash.

His four-year-old was dead. And all he felt was relief.

I wanted to walk out there and slam his face into that wall. I wanted him to know I saw it. That I remembered every single thing.

But that wasn't the plan.

I had twelve weeks before Columbia gave him the Harrison Chair. The kind of title that makes a man untouchable. Once he had it, he'd be too important, too protected, too defended. I had to take him down before that happened.

Twelve weeks. I could do a lot in twelve weeks.

He came back with fresh coffee and cologne. Acqua di Giò. He always wore it when he wanted people to like him. First date cologne. Meeting-the-dean cologne. He probably put it on every morning while I was out, just in case someone was watching.

"Hey." He sat on the edge of my bed. Soft. Careful. "Doctor says you're going to be okay."

"Where am I?"

"St. Luke's. New York." He was watching my face. I gave him nothing. "We live on the Upper West Side. Been married seven years."

Seven years. I used to think that was a long time.

"Do we..." I looked at the hall, then back. "Do we have kids?"

He didn't answer right away. I watched him decide how much feeling to put into it.

"We had a daughter," he said. "Lily." His voice cracked. Nice touch. "She was in the car with you."

"Is she okay?"

"She didn't make it." He pressed his knuckle to his lip. Blinked a few times. "I'm sorry, Elara."

He wasn't sorry. He was performing. Pretty good, too. Just not as good as he thought.

I closed my eyes. Counted to three. Opened them wet.

"I don't remember her."

"That's okay." He took my hand. Both of his wrapped around mine. Thumb making slow circles on my wrist. "I'm going to take care of you. We'll get through this."

Same hands.

Same hands that signed the work order.

I squeezed back. Soft. Grateful. The wife who needs her husband.

"Thank you," I said. "I'm scared."

He smiled. That smile. The one people make when they think they got away with it.

I smiled back.

And I started counting.