Chapter 3: What the Detective Already Knew
I put the USB drive in my jacket pocket.
I closed the laptop.
Then I opened the office door.
Martin was standing two feet back from it, close enough that he must have had his ear near the frame.
He straightened when he saw me.
His expression tried for concern and landed somewhere closer to calculation.
"Jonathan, the guests—"
"Hannah is at St.
Clement's."
Something moved behind his eyes.
Not surprise.
The absence of surprise.
"That's — God, is she all right?"
"I'm going to find out." I moved past him.
"Tell Florence I had a family emergency."
His hand came down on my arm.
Not hard.
Just present.
"You can't walk out of your own wedding."
I looked at his hand until he removed it.
"Watch me," I said.
I took the service exit.
The corridor smelled of linen and old carpet and the particular quiet of a building holding its breath.
Outside, the afternoon light was flat and white.
I called a car and stood at the kerb with my jacket still buttoned and my boutonniere still pinned to my lapel like a small, absurd flag.
My phone rang before the car arrived.
Florence.
I let it ring.
It rang again immediately.
I turned the screen face-down in my palm.
The third call was from a number I didn't know.
I answered it.
"Mr.
Prescott." The same voice from Hannah's phone.
"Detective Rourke.
I'm at St.
Clement's now.
Your daughter is stable — I want to be clear about that before anything else."
The word *stable* did what it always does.
It tells you the alternative was real.
"What happened to her?"
"She was found this morning at her home.
A neighbour called it in.
There was a fall — that's the working description — but the circumstances are what I'd like to discuss with you in person."
"Working description," I repeated.
"Yes, sir."
"You don't think it was a fall."
A pause.
Short.
Careful.
"I think there are details that don't fit.
And I think you may have information that helps us understand them."
The car pulled up.
I got in.
"I'm twenty minutes away."
"I'll be here," he said.
"Mr.
Prescott — did your daughter contact you this morning?
Before the ceremony?"
"She sent something.
Through my grandson."
"The drive."
I went still.
"You know about it."
"She told us she was going to send it.
Last night, when she called the non-emergency line." Another pause.
"She was frightened, sir.
She said she'd found something and that she didn't know who else to trust."
The car moved through traffic.
Through the window, the city looked exactly the same as it always did.
People on pavements.
A woman pushing a pram.
A man reading his phone outside a coffee shop.
All of it ordinary and indifferent.
"She called the police last night," I said.
"And this morning she had a fall."
"Yes."
"And Florence arrived at Hannah's house at eight o'clock this morning."
The silence on the other end lasted exactly long enough to tell me everything I needed to know about what Detective Rourke already suspected.
"We'll talk when you get here," he said.
I hung up.
In my jacket pocket, the USB drive pressed against my ribs with every breath.
I thought about the power of attorney.
My signature.
The week of my surgery.
Florence bringing papers to the bedside table, telling me not to worry, telling me to rest, setting a pen in my hand while I was still half-blurred from the anaesthetic.
*Just admin, sweetheart.
Nothing important.*
I thought about Martin's hand on my arm.
*Don't make this worse than it needs to be.*
Worse for whom?
My phone lit up on the seat beside me.
A text from Florence.
*Jonathan please.
Whatever Hannah told you — she's been unstable since Thomas d*ed.
You know that.
Come back.
Everyone is waiting.
We can talk about all of this tonight.*
I read it once.
I put the phone back down.
I thought about Leo in his crooked bow tie, pressing his small hand to my cheek.
*She made Mommy cry.*
Not: Florence was mean to Mommy.
Not: they had an argument.
A five-year-old's specific, careful word.
*Made.*
May you like
The hospital entrance appeared through the windscreen.
I was already reaching for the door handle before the car stopped.
