You’d been a nurse long enough to grow numb to late-night calls. But when Dr. Aldridge asked for a chaperone to a private residence, something prickled down your spine.

Home visits were for the rich. The private kind. The kind where the patient’s fiancée had personally called, refusing any hospital admittance.

The manor rose out of the dark like a sleeping beast. Wrought-iron gates. Floodlights cutting sheets of rain. Men in suits by the guardhouse.

You adjusted your surgical mask. The standard white one, loose over your face, covering everything but your eyes. A habit since the pandemic. N95 beneath it, too.

The foyer was warm. Overheated, even. A chandelier dripped with crystals. Marble floors reflected your damp shoes. Someone was sobbing, distantly, from upstairs.

He stopped.

You stopped.

His eyes locked onto yours. Dark. Familiar. Searching.