The morning light filtering through the cathedral hospital’s arched windows felt almost accusatory.
Cattleya Vermont moved through her rounds with mechanical precision, white coat crisp, posture perfect, smile politely distant. No one looking at her would guess that only hours earlier she had been perched on an autopsy table with Rusty Vesper’s hand between her thighs and his mouth devouring hers.
She kept the memory locked behind iron walls of discipline.
Until she reached the administrative wing.
A crowd had gathered outside the director’s office. Whispers rippled through the staff like a nervous pulse. When Cattleya approached, the crowd parted for her the way it always did—half respect, half wariness.
Inside the office, the director stood beaming beside a mountain of paperwork and
