Chapter 17: Not the Man at the Door

Zane's POV

I left Hallie asleep on the landing at one in the morning, under my jacket, with the lawyer's number still glowing on the floor beside her.

I did not wake her.

She had spent the whole day taking other people's weight, and the board could wait three hours for her.

I could not.

I drove to the hospital with both hands tight on the wheel.

The video had gone to eleven board members from an address I did not recognize.

It showed Hallie at twenty-two, dragging a man down a hallway into room 412, and it ended on the closing door.

Someone had cut it there on purpose.

I knew who had.

The maternity ward was dim and quiet at two a.m., and the night nurse was eating crackers at her desk.

"Family only," she said.

"I'm family," I said, and she gave me a look that said I did not look like it.

Cora's door stood open a few inches.

She was sitting up in the bed with the baby against her chest and her phone propped on the tray in front of her.

She was typing with one thumb.

She did not look surprised.

"You look tired," she said.

"Take the video back."

"I can't. It's sent."

"Then call the board and tell them what's missing from it."

"Missing?" Her voice was light. "It's a complete clip. A girl pulls a drunk man into a hotel room. I never said anything else."

"Your mother already said the rest," I said. "She said it on the courthouse steps in front of six cameras."

"My mother is an old woman who loves me."

"Your mother is in a cell."

For a second, Cora's face went blank, and I saw how young she looked under the hospital light.

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