جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 190

[Alice's POV]The villa sat at the end of a gravel road, tucked behind a wall of ancient hedgerows so tall they swallowed the noise of the city whole. I stood at the iron gate and looked up at it. Stone facade. Green shutters. A front garden that had gone wild but in a good way — the kind of wild that meant the soil was rich and productive."It's bigger than I expected," Endall said beside me, pushing the gate open. The rusty hinges groaned."It has three bedrooms," I said. "Camilla gets the one with the bay window.""And you?""The one closest to the front door."He looked at me sideways. He knew why. Quick exit to the car if something went wrong in the night. Easy access if I had an episode and needed to get outside fast. I didn't say any of that. He didn't ask.We walked up the stone path together, the gravel crunching under our feet. The morning air was cold and sharp, the kind that bit at your cheeks and made everything feel brutally real. My coat was too thin but I hadn't notice

[Alice's POV]We moved in on a Thursday.There wasn't much to move. A few boxes from the old lab's storage room. Camilla's stuffed rabbit and her backpack and the small pile of books she'd been carrying around in Zurich like they were life preservers. I'd ordered basics online — sheets, towels, a kettle, a coffee maker, two sets of dishes. Endall helped me carry boxes up the stairs and didn't say a word about how light they were.By evening the house smelled like cardboard and floor polish and something faintly green from the garden coming in through the cracked kitchen window. Camilla had already claimed every room on a rotating basis — first the bay window bedroom, then the kitchen stool by the window, then a spot under the oak tree, until the cold drove her inside.I was standing in the kitchen making tea I probably wouldn't drink when I heard the crunch of gravel out front.I knew the sound of that car before I saw it. The particular weight of the engine, the way it cut off clean.

[Alice's POV]The nausea hit without warning.One second I was standing at the kitchen counter with a glass of water, the next I was braced over the sink, my whole body wringing itself out. I gripped the edge of the basin and waited for it to pass. It always passed. It just took longer now.When it was done, I straightened up, wiped my face with a dish towel, and breathed through my nose until the room stopped tilting.The tumor and the baby were running out of room to negotiate. I could feel it — the constant, low-grade pressure that flared into something sharper whenever I moved too fast or didn't eat on time or forgot to lie down for twenty minutes after midday. My body had its own schedule now and it didn't consult me before making changes.My belly was showing more now. Not dramatically. Not the full, round swell of a normal pregnancy by this stage. Third trimester. I could still hide the thickening of my waist under a loose sweater but couldn't ignore it when I was standing in f

[Alice's POV]David was working on the east guttering when they arrived.He'd been up on the ladder since nine this morning. Camilla was below him in her rubber boots, passing things up when he asked, eating a piece of toast with her free hand. It was an ordinary Saturday morning in a way I hadn't had in longer than I could remember, and I was trying not to read too much into that.I was at the kitchen table with a thermos of tea and the latest synthesis projections when I heard the car pull up out front. Two doors. Then voices — one bright and carrying, the other lower, almost inaudible.I recognized both of them even before I reached the window.Marie Van den Berg came through the gate first, her coat a deep burgundy today, her hair loose around her shoulders. She was carrying what looked like a bottle of wine wrapped in paper and walking the way she always did — like whatever space she was entering had been waiting for her specifically.Adam Ballard followed two steps behind. Dark

[Lily's POV]The luxury suite was quiet — thick walls, triple-paned glass, a silence that cost money yet still felt like confinement.I sat on the edge of the bed in a silk robe, with my phone. The screen showed the thread. Twelve messages to David. Not one response.At that house again?I thought you had calls today.David, I need to talk to you about the doctor’s appointment.Can you at least let me know you're alive.I set the phone down on the nightstand. Then picked it up again. Checked. Nothing.I'd sent the first message at nine this morning, when his assistant had stated dismissively that Mr. Newcombe was unavailable until further notice. Unavailable. In Zurich. In the same city where Alice McCutchen was settling into a little house with a garden and a handyman called David.I stood and walked to the window. The city spread out below me, clean and gray and indifferent. Somewhere out there, David was on a ladder. Or crouched on a floor with his daughter. Or sitting at Alice's k