Chương 4
“He threw boiling coffee into her face,” Samuel said.
“I understand.”
“He admitted throwing the mug.”
“He said it slipped during an argument.”
“It traveled nine feet.”
“I’m not defending him, Mr. Briggs.”
Samuel closed his mouth.
Malik turned to Nora. “I need you to hear this clearly. The fact that he has not been arrested this morning does not mean the report is closed. It means the charging process is continuing.”
Nora rubbed her palms against her trousers.
“When I go back to work, every nurse on my floor will know before lunch.”
Malik’s expression did not change, but his voice softened. “Maybe.”
“I’m charge nurse three nights a week. Police bring patients to our emergency department. My name will be in the report.”
“The report is not public gossip.”
“You don’t work in a hospital.”
“No.”
“Everyone knows everything except what medication is missing.”
A corner of Samuel’s mouth twitched, then flattened when he realized she was not joking.
Malik rested the report against his thigh. “Your employer may have policies about leave and workplace safety. The victim advocate can help you plan that conversation.”
Nora looked at the clock above the stove.
8:17.
She had been scheduled to begin a twelve-hour shift at seven.
For the first time since the mug struck her, she wondered who had taken her patients.
She had texted her unit manager from the hospital: Family emergency. Facial injury. Cannot work today.
Her manager had replied immediately: Do you need help?
Nora had not answered.
She unlocked her phone. Thirty-four unread messages filled the screen.
Two were from her manager.
Four from coworkers.
Nine from Derek, sent before the order was served.
The rest were from people in the neighborhood group chat.
Is everything okay on Alder Court?
Does anyone know why police are at the Whitaker house?
Praying for everyone involved.
Nora almost laughed.
Praying for everyone involved was what people wrote when they wanted details but feared appearing hungry.
She opened her manager’s latest message.
Please don’t worry about staffing. Call me when you can. Not as your boss. As me.
Nora turned the phone facedown.
“I need to shower,” she said.
Malik nodded. “Before I leave, we should review safety steps.”
“I know safety steps.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“I teach discharge instructions.”
“And patients remember half of what they’re told on a good day.”
She looked at him.
He waited.
“Fine,” she said.
They reviewed doors, windows, cameras, emergency contacts, work notification, vehicle location, and what to do if Derek appeared. Malik asked whether firearms were kept in the house. Nora said no. Tessa said Derek had once shown her a photograph of a handgun in Kyle’s truck.
Malik wrote it down.
Nora had not known about the photograph.
The list of things she had not known was becoming more intimate than her marriage.
When Malik left, the second patrol car remained across the street. Samuel took a call from the locksmith. Tessa stood near the kitchen sink and stared at the dark stain in the grout.
“I can go,” she said.
Nora peeled the edge of her coat away from her neck. The lining had stuck to a small patch of ointment.
“Yes.”
Tessa nodded.
She made it to the doorway before Nora spoke again.
“Send Samuel everything. Not selected messages. Everything.”
Tessa turned.
“If you protect yourself by leaving out the parts where you lied,” Nora said, “Derek will use the gaps.”
“I understand.”
“No. You understand that I’m angry. That isn’t the same thing.”
Tessa swallowed.
Nora continued. “The police need the affair messages too. The promises. The photographs. Whatever he said about me. Whatever you said about me.”
Tessa looked sick.
“Especially those,” Nora said.
Samuel lowered his phone.
Tessa’s grip tightened around her device. “There are things in there I’m ashamed of.”
“So are there in my marriage.”
The sentence hung between them.
Tessa gave one small nod. “I’ll send all of it.”
After she left, Nora locked the door again.
She went upstairs and stood in the bedroom she had shared with Derek for six years.
His side of the closet was still full.
The suitcase on the porch contained only what Samuel had advised her to pack: seven days of clothes, basic toiletries, prescription medication, a laptop charger, and the brown shoes Derek wore to formal dinners because he said black leather looked like a funeral director. Nora had folded everything mechanically at five in the morning while a patrol officer waited in the hall.
She had left his blue striped shirt on him.
She had also left the wedding photograph on his dresser.
In the picture, Nora’s hair reached her shoulders. Derek’s hand rested at her waist. Her father had been dead eleven months, and Samuel had walked her down the aisle because nobody else understood why she needed someone who would not say her father would have wanted her to be happy.
Derek had understood that need immediately.
He understood most needs quickly.
That had once seemed like kindness.
Nora entered the bathroom and removed the dressing. The burn looked worse than it had beneath the hospital lights. Redness spread from below her eye to her collarbone. Two blisters had risen along her jaw. The nurse who treated her had said the injury might heal without significant scarring if infection did not develop, then carefully added that burns often declared themselves over time.
Nora had used the same phrase with patients.
We’ll know more over time.
It sounded different when applied to a face.
She turned on the shower and waited for the water to become lukewarm.
Derek liked showers so hot the mirror stayed fogged for half an hour. He left wet towels on the floor and insisted he had hung them. Nora used to photograph the towels and send him the pictures with increasingly ridiculous captions.
Rare endangered linen discovered in natural habitat.
May you like
He would reply with a laughing emoji and still leave them there.
The memory irritated her because it was tender.
