The word hung in the air, brutal and final. Police.
My blood turned to ice. The world seemed to shrink, the comfortable clutter of my shop suddenly feeling like a cage. My gaze snapped to Elara. The color drained from her face so completely I thought she might faint, the terror in her eyes a stark, painful echo of the woman who had woken on my slab. The beautiful drawing of lavender was crushed in her fist, a symbol of our fragile peace destroyed in an instant.
The pounding came again, a violent fist against the wood. "Open up! Now!"
It was Elara who moved. A terrifying calm settled over her features, the same focused intensity she'd shown when she'd saved Clara. She grabbed my arm, her fingers cold and desperate. "The door. You have to answer it. If you don't, they will break it down."
Her logic was a lifeline in the roaring sea of my panic. I nodded, my mind a frantic, scrambling thing. "Stay here. Both of you. Do not make a sound." My order was for Clara, too, who watched us with wide, frightened eyes.
I took the stairs two at a time, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. At the top, I forced myself to stop. To breathe. One deep, steadying breath. I could not be Alistair Finch, the guilty man. I had to be Dr. Finch, the irritated professional. I unbolted the door and opened it a few inches.
Two uniformed constables stood on my step, their presence an obscenity in the quiet evening. The taller one, a sergeant with a weary mustache, held up a lantern. "Dr. Alistair Finch?"
"Yes. What is the meaning of this?" I put every ounce of affronted dignity I could muster into the words.
"We have a warrant to search your premises, sir." He held out a folded paper. The official seal was a death knell.
A warrant. Silas. He actually did it. My mind screamed the words, but my face, I hoped, remained a mask of confused irritation. "A warrant? On what grounds?"
"Information received regarding the disturbance of a grave and the possible concealment of a body." His voice was flat, rehearsed. The younger, broader constable took a step forward, his intention clear. They were coming in.
My stomach lurched. I had no choice. I opened the door wider, sending a silent, screaming prayer down the stairs. Hide. Be nothing. Be no one.
They stepped inside, their boots heavy on my floor. Sergeant Evans looked around, his eyes missing nothing. "Where is your basement, Doctor?"
The question I dreaded. Of course they knew. Silas would have drawn them a map. "Through there," I said, my voice miraculously steady. "It is my laboratory and storage. My sister is gravely ill downstairs. I must ask you to be quiet and respectful."
He gave a curt nod. The younger man moved to the door and opened it.
I followed them down, my heart in my throat. What would I find? A hiding place? A scene of panic?
The sight that greeted me stole the air from my lungs.
The lamp glowed softly. Clara slept, or feigned it perfectly, her breathing deep and even. And Elara… Elara was sitting in the chair beside her, a book open in her lap. She looked up as we descended, her expression a masterpiece of polite, bewildered surprise. She was the picture of domestic tranquility. Only the white-knuckled grip she had on the book betrayed her true state.
Sergeant Evans's eyes scanned the room, taking in the tools, the jars, the second bed. His gaze landed on the women. "Your sister?" he asked me, nodding toward Clara.
"Yes."
"And this is?" He looked at Elara.
My mind went blank. The lie. What was the lie? Colleague's daughter? Friend? The words tangled on my tongue.
Before I could form a sentence, Elara spoke.
"I am his wife."
The words were quiet, clear, and they hit me with the force of a physical blow. His wife. The air left my lungs. I stared at her, but she wasn't looking at me. She held the sergeant's gaze, a faint, convincing blush on her cheeks, the picture of a shy new bride.
The sergeant's stern expression softened a fraction. "I see. We apologize for the intrusion, ma'am. Official business." He began his search, his eyes sharp. He looked at the clean surgical table. He peered at the jars. He opened cabinets.
The younger constable poked at a stack of linen with undisguised disgust.
I stood frozen, a statue of dread. Every second was an agony of anticipation. I watched the sergeant's eyes, trying to read his thoughts.
Then he stopped. His gaze fell on the one thing I had forgotten. The canvas sack. Stained with earth, slumped in the corner by the books.
My blood ran cold. Idiot. Fool.
Sergeant Evans walked over to it. He nudged it with his boot. It was obviously empty, but its purpose was unmistakable. He looked from the sack to me, his eyebrows raised in a silent, damning question.
My mouth was desert-dry. My mind raced, a frantic animal in a trap. A dozen excuses flashed and died. Nothing sounded plausible.
"It is for my work."
Elara's voice again. Calm. She had stood, the book still in her hands. She looked embarrassed, her blush deepening beautifully. "For the garden. I… I am trying to start a small herb garden. For my husband's medicines. The soil in the yard is poor. I had him fetch some richer earth from… from the outskirts of town." She looked down, a perfect portrait of wifely contrition. "It was foolish, I know. But I wanted it to be a surprise."
The lie was so breathtakingly simple, so ordinary, it was brilliant. It was the lie of a person living a life, not hiding a crime.
The sergeant stared at her, then back at the sack. The stern set of his jaw relaxed. He almost smiled. "A garden, eh? My missus is always on at me about the soil, too." He shook his head, the danger in his eyes completely gone, replaced by the weary camaraderie of a married man. He looked at me. "You're a brave man, Doctor, carting dirt for your wife's surprises."
The relief was so potent it made me lightheaded. The tension shattered. The younger constable stopped his poking, looking bored now.
They finished their search with a few more perfunctory glances. They found nothing. There was nothing to find. The only evidence was the woman who had just perjured herself to save us all.
Finally, Sergeant Evans tipped his hat. "Our apologies for the disturbance, Doctor, ma'am. We'll see ourselves out."
I followed them up, bolting the door behind them with hands that shook so badly I could barely slide the bolt home. I leaned my forehead against the cool, solid wood, listening as their footsteps faded down the street. The silence they left behind was ringing.
I didn't know how long I stood there. I was trembling, awash in a nauseating cocktail of fading adrenaline and dawning, staggering relief.
A soft sound behind me made me turn.
Elara was standing at the top of the basement stairs, watching me. The brave, wifely mask was gone. In its place was a raw, shell-shocked vulnerability that mirrored exactly what was churning inside me.
We stared at each other across the dark shop. The space between us seemed to hum with the aftermath of what we had just survived, the audacity of her lie, the sheer, blinding force of our combined will to live.
I moved without conscious thought. I crossed the room and stopped in front of her. I didn't touch her. I just drank in the sight of her, this astonishing, fearless woman.
"You called yourself my wife," I whispered. The words felt foreign and momentous on my tongue.
A shaky, almost hysterical laugh escaped her. "It was the first thing that came to mind. It seemed… definitive."
"It was brilliant," I said, and the awe in my voice was real. "You were brilliant."
"They believed it," she said, her voice full of wonder. "We did it. We turned them away."
"We did," I breathed.
In the giddy, terrifying silence that followed, something broke open inside me. The careful wall I had built between duty and desire, between truth and lies, crumbled to dust. The attraction I had fought for weeks became a tidal wave, and I was drowning in it.
I saw the same surrender in her eyes. Her gaze dropped to my lips, then back to my eyes, a question and an answer.
I closed the final distance between us. I cupped her face in my hands, my touch gentle against the tremor in my fingers. I gave her every chance to refuse me, to remember the thousand reasons this was a catastrophic idea.
She didn't. She leaned into my touch, her eyes fluttering closed, and that was all the permission I would ever need.
I bent my head and kissed her.
It was not a gentle kiss. It was desperate and hungry, a kiss forged in shared terror and triumph. It was a claiming and a surrender. Her hands came up to clutch the front of my shirt, holding on as if I were the only solid thing in a world that had just tried to tear us apart.
When we broke apart, we were both breathless. We stayed there, foreheads touching, our ragged breaths mingling in the dark.
The world outside was still there. Silas was still a threat. The police might still have questions.
But in that moment, none of it mattered. The lie had become a truth. The performance was over.
I was a man who had dug a woman from a grave. And now, I was a man kissing her in the dark, with no idea how I would ever let her go.