Page 178 of Wrong Number Right Doctor

Alester’s brow lifts. “Excuse me?”

“The man under all the expensive restraint.”

His smile disappears. Good.

“I wondered how long it would take,” I say. “You talk about protecting Maggie. You talk about your child, your family, your arrangement. But this is what you are. A man who finds the worst wound in the room and presses until someone obeys.”

“Careful.”

“No. You wanted direct? Here it is. I know what happened to my father. You know enough to know that file doesn’t tell the truth. Use it if you want. But don’t stand there and pretend this is about Maggie’s safety. I’m not dangerous to her.”

“No,” he says. “You are dangerous to my control of her.”

For the first time, silence comes from him, not me. He has said too much. We both know it.

I look at him. “At least you can tell the truth when you slip.” With that, I turn around and walk out of the room.

Chapter Twenty-One

MAGGIE

It’s been three days.

I tell myself that like it’s a normal amount of time. Like it means nothing. Like people go three days without texting all the time and it doesn’t automatically mean something has shifted.

It means something. I know it does. I’m trying not to.

My phone sits face down on the table while I eat something that technically qualifies as lunch. I don’t remember making it. I don’t really taste it either. I just chew because I know I’m supposed to, because of the vitamins sitting next to my plate, because of his stupid note that said eat something like he could still tell me what to do from a distance.

I flip the phone over.

Nothing. No new message from him.

Simone has texted twice.

Nate has called three times and left one voicemail I haven’t opened yet.

There are notifications from people I barely know, people I definitely don’t know, and one message from a number saved as “Unknown Media” that I refuse to click on because I am not emotionally stable enough to see my own face attached to headlines.