POV: Evelyn

I had been awake for less than thirty seconds when my husband came to take my daughter.

Grant stood at the foot of my hospital bed in a clean uniform, holding a court order.

His split lip had been stitched. A white bandage wrapped the wrist Silas had bent. Someone had polished the mud from his boots and pinned his badge back over his heart.

He looked more respectable than he had before trying to kill me.

"Good morning, sweetheart."

My hand moved across the blanket, searching for Sophie.

The chair beside me was empty.

Panic tore through the medication haze. I tried to sit up. Fire opened along my ribs, and the metal brace around my left leg seemed to drive straight through the bone.

"Where is she?"

"Safe." Grant smiled. "For the first time in weeks."

Two people stood behind him: Sergeant Mercer and a woman in a gray suit carrying a county child-services badge. A hospital security officer waited outside the open door.

No Silas.

No Maeve.

No black leather cut hanging around Sophie's shoulders.

"Get out."

Grant unfolded the paper. "Judge Halpern issued an emergency protective order at ten sixteen last night. You are being placed on a seventy-two-hour psychiatric hold following an attempt to kill yourself and our daughter. Sophie has been released into my custody."

The monitor beside me began to alarm.

The woman from child services looked at it instead of at me.

"Mrs. Quinn," she said, "my name is Paula Reed. I know this is upsetting, but your medical history shows—"

"My medical history shows whatever he paid Dr. Vale to write."

Grant lowered his eyes with practiced sorrow. "This is what happens when she misses her medication."

"I don't have medication."

Paula opened a folder. Inside were prescription records bearing my name. Antipsychotics. Sedatives. Three hospital admissions I had never experienced.

My address was correct.

My date of birth was correct.

Even the emergency contact was correct.

Grant Quinn. Husband.

The dates were correct too, though not in the way Paula believed.

The first prescription had been entered the morning after Grant broke the bathroom mirror beside my head. The second followed the night I packed Sophie's clothes and tried to leave. One hospitalization appeared three days after I called internal affairs, when Grant took my phone and told everyone I had gone to visit my sister.

He had not invented a random illness.

He had built one around every time I resisted him.

Each bruise became an episode. Each attempt to leave became proof of instability. Every person I asked for help had unknowingly added another page to the weapon he was holding now.

At the bottom of each record sat the same electronic signature.

DR. ELIAS KEENE, MUNICIPAL WELLNESS PROGRAM.

I had never met him.

But I knew the program. It provided confidential treatment for police officers and their families, and its records could not be accessed without department authorization.

Grant had not done this alone.

"Those aren't mine."

"Evelyn." His voice softened. "Denying treatment only makes this harder."

"Where is Sophie?"

The question came out as a scream.

The security officer stepped inside.

Grant did not flinch. He wanted me loud. Wild. Pulling at the IV while every official watched.

I forced my hand flat against the blanket.

"I am asking where my six-year-old daughter is."

Paula finally met my eyes. "She's in the pediatric family room with a nurse. Mr. Quinn has not had physical contact with her yet."

Yet.

"She is terrified of him."

"Children often become confused after a traumatic event."

"She watched him drive through the guardrail."

Mercer shifted toward the door. Grant remained perfectly still.

"There is no evidence of that," Paula said.

"There are twenty helmet cameras."

"Those recordings begin after the accident."

"There is a memory card from the police vehicle."

Grant's smile thinned. "Damaged beyond recovery."

He already knew.

The card had been sealed in another county's evidence pouch less than four hours ago, but Grant already knew its condition.

Either someone in Pine Hollow had called him, or he had damaged it before the crash.

I looked at Mercer.

He looked away.

"Where is Silas?" I asked.

Grant's expression sharpened at the name.

"Mr. Blackwood and his gang were removed from the hospital after threatening staff."

"He didn't threaten anyone."

"He broke my wrist."

"Unfortunately," a deep voice said from the corridor, "I stopped before it broke."

Silas stood beyond the security officer.