I nudged the door open another inch and looked inside.
Rowan was not in his supportive chair or resting against the pillows on his bed, but sitting cross-legged on the thick blue rug, his back slightly curved as he leaned forward with intense concentration. Hannah knelt beside him, her usually composed face tight with an expression I had never seen before, something that hovered between surprise and worry.
When they noticed me, their heads turned at the same moment, and for a brief second the room felt charged with a shared secret that excluded me.
“Mr. Pierce, we didn’t expect you until tomorrow,” Hannah said, rising quickly as though to intercept my view.
Her body shifted just enough to obscure something on the floor between them, and Rowan reached toward it with a small, trembling hand that she gently guided back.
“Rowan, hold on, sweetheart,” she murmured, her voice soothing yet firm.
The protective gesture, subtle as it was, ignited a surge of suspicion in me that surprised even myself.
The Broken Bird
“Hannah, what’s going on?” I asked, aware that my tone had hardened despite my effort to remain calm.
She hesitated, her gaze flicking from Rowan to me, and then she stepped aside just enough for me to see what lay on the rug.
It was a small wooden bird, no larger than my palm, carved with delicate grooves to suggest feathers along its wings. One wing had snapped cleanly near the base, leaving a jagged edge that exposed the pale interior of the wood.
