He did not reach for the screen.

Instead, his fingers tightened on the edge of the medical logs, crumpling the thick paper.

“Answer it, Ethan,” I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs.

“No,” he said, his voice flat and dangerously quiet. “Let it ring.”

The car cabin vibrated with the low, rhythmic buzz of the ringtone.

Outside, a light drizzle began to patter against the windshield, blurring the distant lights of the Chicago skyline.

Ethan tapped the screen to decline the call, plunging the car back into relative darkness.

He turned his phone flashlight on and held it over the surgical logs.

“Look at the time of death on the official certificate, Grace,” he said, his hand trembling slightly. “It says four fifteen in the afternoon.”

I leaned over the center console, the scent of leather and damp wool filling my nose.

My eyes followed his finger to the handwritten anesthesia log.

“But here,” I murmured, reading the faded ink. “The monitor stopped at three ten.”

“An hour and five minutes earlier,” Ethan said.

His eyes scanned the medications listed on the flow sheet.