Henry’s fingers were still digging into my arm when the door slammed against the wall.

‘Let her go.’

My father’s voice didn’t rise.

It didn’t have to.

Eric Carter had spent thirty years as a police sergeant, and even retired, he carried authority the way other men carried coats.

Henry knew that voice.

I watched the color drain from his face before I even turned my head.

My father stood in the doorway with my mother beside him, a nurse at their shoulder, and two hospital security officers just behind them.

The fluorescent light from the hall cut around their bodies in a hard white frame.

For one suspended second, nobody moved.

Then my father’s eyes dropped to Henry’s hand wrapped around my forearm.

‘I said let her go.’

Henry released me so fast my arm fell back onto the bed.

Pain burst through my shoulder and ribs, and I cried out anyway, but I barely heard myself.

My ears were full of blood and relief.

‘It’s not what it looks like,’ Henry said, stepping back.

His voice came out thin.

‘She was upset.

I was helping her sit up.’

The nurse beside my parents, Marisol, gave him a look so cold it could have cracked glass.

‘I heard you from the station,’ she said.

‘I heard you tell a woman with two broken legs to get up and cook for your mother.

I also saw you dragging her.’

Henry straightened, trying to gather himself.

That was his talent.

He could switch faces faster than anyone I had ever known.

Cruel in private, polished in public.

His mouth settled into that wounded, reasonable expression that had fooled me for years.

‘Amy is emotional because of the medication,’ he said.

‘She’s not thinking clearly.

This is a family matter.’

One of the security officers moved between him and my bed.

‘Sir, step into the hallway.’

My mother hurried to my side, one hand going to my hair, the other to my shoulder.

She was trying to be calm, but her fingers were shaking.

My father didn’t come to the bed right away.

He stayed where he was, eyes fixed on Henry, as if experience had taught him that predators only truly showed themselves when they thought they still had a chance.

Then I saw something else over my mother’s shoulder.

Emily.

She was standing just outside the door in her pink jacket, clutching the stuffed rabbit she took everywhere when she was nervous.

Her eyes were huge.

She wasn’t crying.

Somehow that was worse.

‘Daddy?’ she whispered.

Henry turned toward the sound, and for the first time all afternoon, his mask slipped completely.

He hadn’t expected witnesses.

He definitely hadn’t expected our daughter.

My father stepped sideways so Henry’s line of sight to Emily was blocked.

‘You’re done here,’ he said.

The security officers escorted Henry into the hallway.

He started talking louder with every step, the way he always did when he felt control leaving him.

‘You people are overreacting.

She’s my wife.

I pay the bills.

I’m trying to get her home.

Ask her.

Ask Amy.’

No one asked me anything until he was out of the room.

Then Marisol checked my arm, documenting the red marks already rising where his fingers had been.

Another nurse came in to