I was trapped in a full-body cast, recovering from a suspicious balcony fall that nearly snapped my spine. My mother-in-law leaned over my hospital bed, viciously pinching my bruised cheek, and held a pillow over my face. "You should have died in the fall, you cheap trash, but I'll finish the job so my son can be free," she whispered maliciously, pressing down hard. I held my breath with terrifying calm, waiting exactly ten seconds before hitting the silent alarm hidden in my palm. The door immediately burst open, revealing not doctors, but the three private investigators who had been monitoring this trap for the past 48 hours.

Rachel Morgan had already decided how long she would let Evelyn believe she was helpless.

Ten seconds.

No more.

The private room at St. Vincent’s in Stamford was washed in clean afternoon light. Rachel lay angled against the raised hospital bed, blue blanket over her hips, white casts and rigid braces swallowing most of her body. Three weeks after falling from a second-story balcony, she could move her right arm, her head, and one heavily immobilized leg more than the doctors initially expected.

Evelyn Morgan stood beside her holding a pillow.

“You should’ve died on that balcony and saved my son the trouble.”

Rachel’s thumb found the silent alarm hidden against her palm.

She didn’t press it yet.

Evelyn leaned closer.

Strawberry-blonde hair framed a face that had spent decades smiling through country-club luncheons and charity galas. Her cream-and-gold jacket smelled faintly of expensive perfume.

“Lucas told me you’d been asking questions again,” she whispered.

Rachel’s pulse jumped at her husband’s name.

Evelyn pinched Rachel’s bruised cheek between two fingers.

Then she lowered the pillow.

Rachel turned her head just before the fabric covered her mouth and nose.

Evelyn pushed harder.

“Lie still, cheap trash. This ends before anyone comes back.”

Four seconds.

Rachel forced herself not to panic.

Six.

Evelyn shifted her weight forward.

Eight.

Rachel closed her fingers around the alarm.

Ten.

She pressed.

At the same instant, Rachel drove her casted leg upward with everything her injured body had left.

The heavy cast struck Evelyn high in the chest and shoulder.

Evelyn staggered backward, still clutching the pillow.

Rachel sucked in air.

“I only needed ten seconds alone with you.”

Evelyn’s arrogance vanished.

She grabbed Rachel’s raised cast and tried to force it down.

A violent impact shook the wooden hospital door behind her.

Rachel looked past her.

“They heard every word you just said.”

The door flew open.

Daniel Cross entered first, broad-shouldered and shaved-headed, followed by Maya Cole and Ethan Ross. None wore uniforms. All three had been sitting in an empty consultation room across the hall.

Evelyn dropped the pillow.

Then, inexplicably, she lunged for Rachel’s alarm hand rather than the door.

Daniel stopped.

He pulled a small recorder from inside his dark jacket.

Evelyn froze.

For the first time Rachel saw genuine terror in her mother-in-law’s face.

Daniel didn’t look at Evelyn.

He looked at Rachel.

“There’s something you need to know before hospital security gets here.”

Footsteps were already pounding down the corridor.

Rachel stared at him.

“What?”