“Don’t shout,” Leen snapped from the outer room, presum- ably opening the door in the process.
“Is she here?” Hants was relentless.
“She is.”
“Where?” Hants’s footsteps fell across the floor.
“Hants, you need to calm down first.” There was a tone in Leen’s voice that Garll had never heard the woman take with her cousin before. “And Lawson, you should go now.”
“Is she in here?” Hants’s voice grew louder, and Garll shrunk further into herself.
“Listen to me—” Leen’s attempt was too late.
A large beam of light stretched across the bed like an accusatory arrow the moment Hants opened the wood and paper door between the bedroom and the main room. Garll didn’t move, her shoulders trembled, and she hardly breathed. What could she possibly say to him?
“Garll,” he breathed, relief saturatin
