Hazel's POV
"Penelope Chambers," Detective Reyes said, and the name landed exactly the way I expected it to, and somehow still knocked the air out of me. "The payment came through a shell account, but it traces back to her within two transfers. We're getting a warrant by morning."
I looked at Julian, still asleep, his chest rising and falling under the thin hospital blanket, and I thought about all the lunches he'd taken with her over the past six months, all the times he'd told me she was harmless, that she was simply an old friend passing through a hard year. I didn't say any of that to Detective Reyes. I only asked him what happened next, and he told me: an arrest, a formal charge of attempted assault, possibly worse depending on what else they found. He left a card on the bedside tab
