Malcolm laughed, sharp and disbelieving. “Do you know who I am?”
“Yes,” Angela said. “That’s why we’re here.”
The officer took Malcolm’s wrist.
For the first time since Grace had seen him, Malcolm Rourke looked truly old.
Not weak. Not defeated.
Exposed.
As they turned him, his eyes found Grace. Hatred burned there, clean and bright.
“This isn’t over,” he said.
Grace was still shaking, her arm aching, her child restless beneath her heart. But she met his gaze and did not look away.
“Yes,” she said. “It is.”
Sebastian turned sharply at the sound of her voice, as though it had pulled him back from a ledge.
He moved toward her, then stopped a few feet away.
“Grace.”
She could see the question in him. The need to touch her. To make sure she was real. To apologize for being too late even though he had arrived in time. To kneel, perhaps, if the world had not been full of police and broken doors.
She lifted one hand.
Not to invite him closer.
To stop him.
Sebastian obeyed.
That, more than anything, almost undid her.
Megan appeared from behind two officers, hair wild, cheek bruised, fury intact. “I’m fine,” she announced before Grace could ask. “But if anyone wants to arrest the man I hit with a tray, he’s behind the vaccination table reconsidering his life.”
A stunned laugh escaped Grace, broken at the edges.
Megan rushed to her and wrapped both arms around her carefully. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That is not a medical assessment.”
“I’m okay,” Grace whispered, and then the words broke. “I think Lily’s okay.”
Megan pulled back immediately, one hand hovering near Grace’s stomach. “Any pain? Bleeding? Dizziness?”
“No. Just… scared.”
“We’re going to the hospital.”
Grace nodded.
Sebastian took one step forward. “My car is outside.”
Megan’s eyes snapped to him. “She’ll go in an ambulance.”
Sebastian accepted the blow without blinking. “Of course.”
Grace looked at him then.
There was blood on his knuckles. Not much. A thin line, probably from forcing the rear door open. Dust clung to the shoulder of his coat. His face was colorless.
“You called Angela,” Grace said.
“I called everyone,” he replied. “But Angela was already close.”
“Already close?”
His jaw tightened. “She’s been helping me build the case against Malcolm.”
Grace absorbed that.
Another secret.
But not the kind meant to trap her.
Still, exhaustion swept through her so fiercely that the basement tilted. Megan caught her elbow.
Sebastian saw and went rigid.
“Grace?”
“I’m fine,” she said, though her voice sounded far away.
The paramedics arrived minutes later, their questions gentle but rapid. Blood pressure. Pulse. Pain. Fetal movement. Grace answered as best she could while the room blurred with uniforms, radios, and the low murmur of officers taking statements.
When they guided her toward the stretcher, she resisted.
“I can walk.”
Megan gave her a look. “You can also sit down and stop arguing with people who know better.”
Grace sat.
As they wheeled her toward the rear exit, Sebastian followed at a distance until she turned her head.
He stopped immediately.
That restraint again.
It made her angry. It made her ache. It made her remember the ultrasound picture he had held with both hands.
“Sebastian,” she said.
He came closer, but not too close.
His eyes were fixed on her as if looking away might make her vanish.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice raw. “I should have—”
“Don’t.” She closed her eyes for a second. “Not here.”
He nodded once.
The paramedics lifted the stretcher over the threshold into the cold Sunday air. Police lights painted the alley red and blue. Parishioners stood behind yellow tape, whispering prayers. Somewhere above them, the church bell began to ring for evening Mass.
Sebastian walked beside the stretcher until they reached the ambulance.
Grace looked at him in the flashing lights.
“Did you know?” she asked.
His face tightened. “About my father?”
She nodded.
“Not until three days ago.”
“And Vivian?”
“I suspected. Angela found her. She talked when she realized Malcolm would let her take the fall for everything.”
Grace looked down at her belly. Lily moved under her palm, a slow roll now, no longer a furious kick.
“Your whole life,” Grace said quietly, “he’s been lying to you.”
Sebastian’s mouth trembled once before he controlled it.
“Yes.”
She should have felt vindicated.
Part of her did. A hard, wounded part. The part that wanted to say, Now you know what it is to have the truth stolen from you.
But there was no satisfaction in seeing someone discover that his life had been built by a murderer.
The paramedic climbed into the ambulance. “Ma’am, we need to go.”
Grace nodded.
Sebastian stepped back.
Then, as the doors began to close, he reached into his coat and pulled out the ultrasound picture.
The one she had given him.
Still intact.
Still held carefully.
“I have it,” he said, as if she had asked. As if it mattered that she knew.
Grace stared at the small black-and-white image in his hand.
Then the ambulance doors shut between them.