Then he saw the blood.

Wendy had refused to clean it. She said he needed to see exactly what he had walked away from. The smear near the hallway had dried into a dark brown stain.

Broken glass still sparkled across the kitchen tile. My hospital bracelet sat on the entry table beside a stack of legal papers, printed and waiting.

Cameron dropped the cake. It landed face down on the floor.

“What happened here?” he whispered.

From the living room, my brother-in-law, Robert, stepped into view. He was a police officer, still in uniform after driving straight from his shift to help Wendy change the locks.