“Nora. Nora, baby, please.”
He dropped beside her, trembling so violently he could barely touch her.
She was breathing.
Barely.
A sound tore out of him, half sob and half prayer. He reached for her shoulder, then froze. He had watched enough emergency videos at work to know not to move someone who might have fallen. So he took off his sweatshirt and laid it over her body with shaking hands.
Behind him, lights began flicking on in apartment windows.
“What happened?” someone shouted.
“Call 911!” Liam screamed. “Somebody call 911!”
A window opened on the second floor. Mrs. Alvarez leaned out in her robe, one hand over her mouth. “Liam? Is that Nora?”
He looked up and saw the balcony door above them hanging open.
The balcony where he had locked his wife outside.
The balcony where he had left her in the cold because his sister had told him to believe the worst.
And then he saw something else.
At the base of the tree, just beyond Nora’s outstretched hand, was a small folded piece of paper, pinned beneath her wedding ring.
The ring caught the courtyard light.
A tiny, brutal circle of gold.