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“No, no. He’s sleeping now. We should let him rest and then you can have a look at him when he wakes later. Are you all right? You sound tense.”
“I’m fine,” she said automatically, then remembered that Mac was in this too, now. “Actually… I think someone is following me and taking pictures. At Noah’s school, and just now at the clinic.”
The silence on the other end lasted just a beat too long.
“What did he look like?” Mac asked finally, his tone carefully neutral.
“Tall, thin. Dark jacket. Baseball cap pulled low. I couldn’t see his face clearly.” She hesitated. “You think it’s the Prescotts?”
Another pause. “We’ll talk when you get here.”
“Mac…”
“Let’s just be careful, okay?” he said, too quickly. “Text me when you get to your next patient and when you leave, just so I know where you are.”
Kelsey stood in the parking lot long after the call ended.
She glanced back at the tree line once more before getting into her car and locking the doors immediately. As she pulled out of the lot, she caught herself checking the rearview mirror every few seconds for a dark figure that wasn’t there.
Yet.
Kelsey’s hands gripped the steering wheel tightly as she left Mrs. Hendricks’s cottage, her second home visit of the morning. The elderly woman’s blood pressure had been stable, her medication working well, but Kelsey was distracted throughout the visit, eyes darting to windows and doorways.
“Get a grip,” she muttered to herself, checking her rearview mirror for the third time since pulling away. Nothing but empty road stretched behind her.
She parked outside the Marshall residence, her last stop before Truman’s. Before getting out, she sent a quick text to Mac:
Arriving at my last stop. Will head to Truman’s after.
His reply came almost immediately: Text when you leave there. Call if anything seems off.
The care she took in checking her surroundings while walking to the front door made her feel foolish, yet she still carried the sensation of being watched. The visit passed without incident. Her patient’s wounds were healing well, and her husband was learning to take over their care from the visiting nurses.
Back in her car, she texted Mac again:
On my way now. ETA 15 minutes.
As she drove the winding coastal road to Truman’s house, Kelsey kept scanning the roadside and checking her mirrors. The rational part of her brain knew she was being hypervigilant, but Mac’s wary voice during their earlier call had triggered her instincts.
Truman’s cottage came into view. Mac’s SUV sat in the circular driveway alongside a small sedan that belonged to Truman’s day nurse. The familiarity of the scene brought a small measure of relief.
Kelsey gathered her nursing bag and hurried up the walkway. Before she could knock, the door swung open, and Mac stood there, shoulders tense, eyes quickly scanning the road behind her.
“Everything okay?” he asked, voice low.
“Fine. No sign of anyone following me.”
Mac nodded and stepped back to let her in. The tightness around his eyes didn’t ease. “Good. That’s good.”
“What’s going on?” she asked. His tension seemed to stem from more than just the Prescotts taking photos of her again.
He glanced toward the living room. “Grandad had a rough night.”
His tone shifted her focus immediately. Kelsey followed Mac into the main room.
Truman sat in his usual armchair by the window, but the commanding presence that had filled the space just two weeks ago had diminished. His skin had a grayish undertone that Kelsey recognized immediately with cardiac failure, and the effort each breath required was evident in the slight rise and fall of his shoulders.
“There she is,” Truman said, his voice thinner than before but still carrying the warmth she’d come to expect. “My granddaughter.”
