Vincent stepped closer.
“You think you know fear?”
Grace’s blue eyes changed.
For a moment, the hallway seemed to narrow around them.
“I buried my daughter in a cemetery where I couldn’t afford the stone I wanted,” she said quietly. “So yes, Mr. Callahan. I know fear. I know the kind that comes before death. And I know the kind that comes after.”
The words struck him harder than he expected.
Vincent had read the file. Ruby Miller. Age six. Pneumonia that turned septic after a clinic missed the severity. Grace’s husband had died two years before that in a construction accident. Debt followed. Then grief. Then hunger dressed up as pride.
Still, a file was different from hearing the pain come out of her mouth.
Grace did not cry when she said it. Somehow that made it worse.
Vincent looked away first.
It was the first time Mason had ever seen him do that.
From inside the bedroom, Lily coughed.
Vincent’s body moved before thought. He reached for the doorknob, but Grace’s hand shot out and stopped him.
The hallway froze.
Mason reached inside his jacket.
Vincent slowly looked down at Grace’s hand on his wrist.
No one touched Vincent Callahan.
No one.
Grace realized what she had done, but she did not pull away immediately.
“Give her a second,” she whispered. “If you rush in every time she coughs, she’ll think coughing means panic.”
Vincent’s eyes burned.
“My daughter is dying.”
“Then stop teaching her how terrified you are of losing her.”
The words landed like a slap.
Mason took one step forward.
Vincent lifted one finger, stopping him.
Inside the room, Lily coughed again. Then Noah said something too soft to hear. A second later, Lily giggled.