Chapter 1 — The Ceiling of Mercy General

The smell of hospital bleach never quite leaves you.

It sits at the back of the throat, a chemical reminder of how vulnerable a body can be.

I lay still and stared up at the water-stained ceiling tiles of Mercy General, listening to the steady beep of the monitor.

My left wrist was fractured and wrapped, there was gauze around my forehead, and bruises were coming up across my shoulders.

But the physical pain was nothing next to the cold clarity forming in the center of my chest.

I did not remember the fall itself; the concussion had taken it.

What I knew, I knew the way you know a thing from its evidence — from the cast on my arm, from the report the doctors read aloud, from what the neighbor told the police.

I had gone to a Sunday dinner at my mother-in-law’s house with a briefcase full of questions, and I had woken up here.

Chapter 2 — The First Text

I picked up my phone with my good hand.

The screen glared in the dim room.

There it was — the message that would become the cornerstone of everything that followed.

It was from my husband, Ian Prentice. You deserved it.