“Mom,” she said.
Her voice wasn’t the weak, dry whisper from the rainy bus stop.It was clear.
Precise.
I walked to the foot of the bed, pulled the metal chair from the corner, and sat down.I rested my palms on my knees, mirroring her stance.
“The baby,” I said.
Chloe tilted her head slightly.A faint, almost imperceptible twitch pulled at the corner of her swollen mouth.
“A necessary fiction.
Men like Garrett don’t abandon wives at bus stops over scratched silverware, Samantha.
Old-money sociopaths hide their work behind private sanitarium admissions and discreet non-disclosure agreements.
But a pregnant woman bleeding to death in the public square?
That forces the local apparatus to scramble.
It creates an undeniable moral imperative.”
I looked at the bruises on her arms.Deep, dark bands of purple where fingers had clamped down hard enough to burst capillaries.
“He beat you with a golf club,” I said.
