Chapter 2
Then Dr. Helen Brooks came in.
She was not what Grant expected.
He expected someone rushed, distracted, easy to steer with the right last names.
He expected someone who would see his watch, his wedding ring, his tired-husband act, and decide the story had already been written.
Dr. Brooks barely glanced at him.
She looked at me.
‘Claire,’ she said, softly enough that the room seemed to narrow around my name. ‘I’m going to examine you now.’
Grant leaned forward.
‘Doctor, like I said, she slipped.’
Dr. Brooks did not answer him.
She lifted the blanket with careful hands and checked the bruising on my forearms.
Then she moved to my ribs.
I could not stop the sound that came out of me when her fingers pressed near the darkest place.
Grant looked irritated before he remembered to look worried.
Dr. Brooks saw that too.
She touched the side of my throat last.
Her face did not twist.
She did not gasp.
She simply went still.
That stillness changed the air.
Grant felt it.
I saw his shoulders tighten.
‘Doctor,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘my family knows people on the hospital board. We do not need to turn a household accident into some kind of scene.’
There it was.
The old move.
Name a connection.
May you like
Shrink the woman.
Make truth sound rude.
