The mattress dipped badly.
“This is terrible,” I told the empty room.
Reid had slept here so I would not feel trapped in a bedroom we once shared.
He had folded himself onto this narrow wreck of a bed because I had awakened afraid of him.
I lay back, still holding the sweater.
The ceiling sloped above me.
Rain moved over the roof.
I intended to stay for only a minute.
Long enough to see whether the room gave me anything.
A flash.
A feeling.
The certainty that I had entered before.
Nothing came.
Only Reid’s scent.
Only exhaustion.
I closed my eye.
Chapter 15
REID
The spreadsheet was red in six places.
I changed one number.
It became red in seven.
I leaned back in my office chair and rubbed both hands over my face.
The yard had survived storms, recessions, an electrical fire in the paint shed, and one catastrophic decision to hire a bookkeeper who considered receipts an attack on her creative freedom.
This was different.
Work had not stopped after Noah’s accident, but it had slowed.
Customers rescheduled when I could not guarantee completion dates. Two large refit jobs went elsewhere. Suppliers still expected payment on time. Payroll did not care whether I had spent the previous night holding Noah through a nightmare.
The insurer had acknowledged the claim.
Acknowledgment did not put money in the account.
The workers’ compensation insurer wanted another report.
The transport company’s legal department wanted an independent medical assessment.
