“Take her phone.”
The words came through my speaker with a scrape of furniture underneath them.
Nobody in the hospital room moved.
Emily’s fingers were still wrapped around my sleeve.
Ethan stared at my phone.
Brandon’s face had lost the careless color it carried when he walked in.
Margaret Prescott did not look frightened yet, but the smile she had worn for the last ten minutes was gone.
I lowered the volume before the next voice could play.
“What is that?” Margaret asked.
Her tone had changed.
The woman who had been threatening lawyers a moment earlier was suddenly choosing every word.
I slipped the phone back into my hand without answering her.
Emily looked up at me.
“It went through?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes closed.
For the first time since I entered the room, some of the tension left her shoulders.
Ethan stepped forward.
“Emily, whatever you recorded without people’s knowledge—”
I moved one pace between him and the bed.
He stopped.
“Do not come closer to her.”
I didn’t raise my voice.
I didn’t need to.
The nurse who had been watching from the hall entered the room.
She looked at Emily, then at Ethan.
“Sir, the patient needs space.”
Margaret gave her an offended glance.
“This is a family matter.”
The nurse’s expression hardened.
“She’s my patient.
Right now, that makes it a hospital matter.”
That was the first boundary the Prescotts had encountered that evening, and I watched all three of them react to it.
Brandon looked toward the hallway.
Ethan reached automatically for his phone.
Margaret looked at me.
“Who did you call?”
I had made three calls before entering Emily’s room.
The first was to the hospital’s patient advocate, because Emily needed someone in the building whose only concern was her safety.
The second was to local law enforcement, because bruises, confinement, threats, and a confiscated phone were not a disagreement between spouses.
The third was to an attorney I trusted to make certain that no one could frighten Emily into signing, retracting, surrendering, or agreeing to anything while she was injured and terrified.
My rank had not made those calls powerful.
The facts had.
I looked at Margaret.
“People whose jobs don’t depend on your approval.”
Her jaw tightened.
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
“I know exactly who I’m dealing with.”
Emily’s grip tightened again.
I turned back to her.
“Tell me only what you can.
Nobody in this room gets to rush you.”
For several seconds she said nothing.
Then she looked past me at Ethan.
“I told him I was leaving.”
Ethan’s face changed.
