POV: Yessica | Location: Edinburgh
She put the phone down and looked at the clock.
Eight fifty-one.
One hour meant Lewis had until nine fifty-one to call Harrison and tell him about Rose before a legal inquiry returned the information without context, without framing, without anything Yessica could control.
Claire finished her toast and carried her plate to the sink the way Yessica had taught her — both hands, slow, set it down don't drop it. Then she looked at her mother with the four-year-old version of the Theron assessment.
"Is Lewis coming today?" she said.
"Not today."
"Tomorrow?"
"I don't know yet, Claire."
Claire accepted this with the patience of a child who had learned that some adult answers were genuinely incomplete and not evasions. She went to her room. Yessica picke
