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Chapter 23

last update Last Updated: 2025-08-03 21:06:23

Convent Garden – Late Afternoon

“I'd pay you twice more than your current salary,” Richard Abbott had said to the woman rocking his son to sleep in the hospital nursery, something no one else had managed since Hannah’s death.

Back then, she had been a stranger. Yet he remembered her clearly now the same calm, steady presence holding his children the night Hannah was placed in a medically induced coma. Quiet. Strong. Unshakable.

PRESENT DAY

Now she sat before him in the convent garden, the sunset staining her face gold. Her eyes were rimmed red, blackened from too much crying, and it twisted something deep in him. Monet had brought light back into the home after Hannah’s death. A slow, gentle light that filled the cracks grief had left behind. And now, watching that light flicker out... it was unbearable.

“Airport?” His voice cracked. “What are you going to do at the airport?”

He knew. He just didn’t want to.

Her lips parted, then closed again. Her breath hitched. “My things are box
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