HIS FORSAKEN WIFE HIS GREATEST REGRET

There's no turning back now.

Roberta's POV

Then I signed. Not slowly. Not emotionally. Deliberately. The pen scratched against the paper—moving across the line with the weight of a decision that had been building for years and was finally, irrevocably, done.

I set the pen down.

Desmond took the document. His expression gave nothing away, but there was a faint precision of satisfaction in how he handled the page. "I'll have this filed by the end of the day. Jace will be served within the week."

He repacked his briefcase.

They shook hands. Then he nodded at me.

"Take care of yourself, Roberta." I nodded once.

Then Brett walked him to the door. I heard low voices in the hallway, the door closing, and then Brett's footsteps coming back.

He sat down in the armchair across from me and picked up a glass of whisky that had been sitting on the side table. He turned it in his hand once before he drank.

I watched the glass.

The mark of his lips on the rim when he lowered it.

The thought arrived so quickly and so clearly that I almost said it out loud.

That glass cup.

His DNA. His saliva. Right there. His glass with his mouth on it, sitting on the table between us.

If I could get that to a lab. If I could get a sample from Ziva at the same time—

"Roberta."

I looked up.

Brett was watching me. "Is there anything you want to do today? We don't have to—"

"Yes." It came out too fast. I steadied it. "Actually — yes. I'd like to go out. On my own." I met his eyes. "Just to think. Clear my head a little. Would that be alright?"

He studied my face for a long moment. "You want to be alone?"

"Yes. Just for a few hours."

He nodded. "Of course." He set the glass down. "Take whichever car you want. Keys are on the hook by the dining area — the red one is easiest to drive." He stood. "I'll be upstairs if you need anything."

"Thank you."

He walked away. Stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Then he looked back.

"You're sure you're okay?"

"I'm sure."

He held my eyes for a moment longer. Then he climbed the stairs.

I waited until I heard the quiet close of his bedroom door.

Then I picked up his glass.

The rim was still wet from his lips.

I wrapped it in a napkin. Then I went upstairs. Changed my clothes. Grabbed my bag.

My hands were shaking as I walked to the garage

***

I was dressed and downstairs in eight minutes.

The glass was wrapped in a napkin in my bag. My hands were not entirely steady. I told myself that was fine. That this was the right thing to do. That I couldn't bury Ziva without knowing, and I couldn't ask Brett without telling him, and I couldn't tell him yet, and so this was the only path available to me.

I took the keys from the hook. The black one.

I sat in the driver's seat.

I looked at the cloth-wrapped glass in the passenger footwell.

Finally, I thought. Finally, I get to know.

My hands were shaking on the wheel as I reversed out of the drive.

***

The hospital appeared at the end of the road, and my whole body reacted before my mind did.

I pulled into the car park and sat with the engine running and looked at the building.

The same doors. The same lights. It was the same building where I had run in screaming with Ziva burning in my arms and being told to lower my voice. Where a nurse had dismissed me and a doctor had been attending to a VIP, and my daughter had been moved from the ICU to a general ward to die.

I had not been back since.

I turned off the engine.

I sat.

Then I got out.

The morgue attendant was a young man with a clipboard and the careful, practised neutrality of someone who spent their days with the unspeakable and had learned to hold it at a professional distance.

I put the bag on the counter.

"I need a DNA sample," I said. "From a child who was brought in approximately three weeks ago. Ziva Riggs. Seven years old."

He looked at me. "Are you next of kin?"

"I'm her mother."

He typed. Looked at his screen. Looked at me. "The sample is for a paternity test?"

"Yes."

He set down the clipboard. His neutrality shifted very slightly into something more human. "We can do that. It's a standard process. We'll need the comparison sample from the other party." He paused. "Do you have that with you?"

I reached into my bag.

Unwrapped the napkin.

Set Brett's glass on the counter.

The attendant looked at it. Then at me.

"The sample," I said. "Is in there."

He looked at the glass for a long moment.

Then at me.

"Ma'am," he said carefully. "Does the other party know they've provided a sample?"

The question sat in the air between us.

I looked at the glass.

At Brett's fingerprints on it. At the rim where his mouth had been.

I thought about him upstairs in his room right now, not knowing where I was or what I was doing, having handed me his car keys and trusted me with them because that was simply the kind of man he was.

I thought about Ziva.

"No," I said.

My voice was steady.

My hands were not.

The man looked at the glass. Looked at me.

"Ma'am," he said. "This is—"

"I know what it is," I said. "Can you do it or not?"

He was quiet for a moment.

Then he nodded. "We can do it."

I let out a breath.

There's no turning back now

"Then do it.”