Chapter 181
Lena's POV
The drive back to the office felt like a bubble—soft, warm, fragile. Rowan's hand rested on the console between us, close enough that I could have reached for it again if I wanted to. I didn't, not yet, but the option being there felt significant somehow. Like we were learning a new language together, one gesture at a time.
When he pulled up outside my building, I unbuckled my seatbelt but didn't immediately move to leave.
"Thank you," I said quietly. "For lunch. For... everything."
His smile was gentle, a little uncertain around the edges. "You don't have to thank me for wanting to be with you, Lena."
I felt my throat tighten, but in a good way this time. "I'll see you later?"
"I'll pick you up after work," he said, and it sounded like a promise.
I was halfway across the lobby when my phone rang. Unknown number, but with a local area code. I almost sent it to voicemail, but something made me answer.
"Ms. Grant?" A woman's voice, professional but strained. "This is Patricia Chen from Silverton Psychiatric Care Facility. I'm calling about your mother, Vivian Grant."
My steps slowed. Stopped. "What about her?"
"She's been... uncooperative the past two days. Destroying property in her room, refusing medication, becoming verbally aggressive with staff." A pause. "She keeps insisting she needs to see her daughter. We were hoping you might be able to come in and help calm her down."
I stood in the middle of the lobby, people flowing around me like water around a stone. My first instinct was to say no. To hang up and block the number and pretend I'd never received this call.
But then I thought about Vivian's face when I'd left her at the courthouse, the way she'd looked at me like I was a stranger. Maybe I was. Maybe I always had been.
"I'll be there," I heard myself say. "Give me two hours."
Rachel looked up when I walked into the office, her expression brightening before she caught whatever was on my face.
"Everything okay?" she asked carefully.
"Fine." I set my bag down, pulled up the Hartwell file on my computer. "I just need to finish the compliance memo and send it to opposing counsel. Can you handle the follow-up if they have questions?"
"Of course." Rachel paused, watching me with that particular brand of concern that made my chest tight. "Where are you going after this?"
"The psychiatric facility." I kept my eyes on the screen. "My mother's causing problems."
Rachel's expression shifted to something between sympathy and concern. "Do you want me to come with you?"
"No." The word came out too sharp. I softened it with effort. "No, thank you. I need to do this alone."
She nodded slowly. "Take your time. I've got everything covered here."
I worked with mechanical efficiency, my fingers flying over the keyboard as I drafted the memo, attached the relevant exhibits, cc'd the appropriate parties. Thirty minutes, start to finish. I forwarded the file to Rachel with a brief note, grabbed my coat, and left before anyone could ask more questions.
The drive to Silverton Psychiatric Care took forty minutes in afternoon traffic. The facility sat on the outskirts of the city, a low-slung modern building trying hard to look like a spa resort rather than a prison for the mentally ill. Tasteful landscaping. Soothing earth tones. Security cameras disguised as decorative fixtures.
Patricia Chen met me in the lobby, a tired-looking woman in her fifties with kind eyes and the weary air of someone who'd seen too much.
"Thank you for coming, Ms. Grant," she said, shaking my hand. "I know this must be difficult."
"How bad is it?" I asked.
She hesitated. "Your mother has been... volatile. She threw a breakfast tray at a nurse yesterday morning. Tore up her bedding. Refused to take her medication unless we agreed to call you." A pause. "We can't force her to cooperate, but we also can't allow her to harm herself or others."
"I understand." My voice sounded distant even to my own ears. "Can I see her?"
Patricia led me down a series of hallways, each one progressively more secure. Key card access. Locked doors. The soft beep of monitoring equipment. Finally, we stopped outside a room with a small observation window.
"I'll be right outside if you need anything," Patricia said gently.
I looked through the window first. The woman sitting on the bed bore little resemblance to the Vivian Grant I'd known my entire life. Her hair, always perfectly styled, hung limp and greasy around her face. Her expensive silk pajamas had been replaced with standard-issue scrubs. Her hands twisted in her lap, restless and agitated.
But it was her eyes that shocked me most. They darted around the room like trapped animals, wild and unfocused.
I took a breath and pushed open the door.
Vivian's head snapped up. For a moment, she just stared at me, and I watched recognition slowly filter through the medication haze.
"Lena." My name came out as a gasp. "Lena, you came."
"The staff said you wanted to see me."
She lurched to her feet, and I instinctively took a step back. She noticed, and something flickered across her face—hurt, maybe, or anger. It was hard to tell anymore.
"You have to get me out of here," she said, her voice rising. "This place—they're keeping me prisoner. They won't let me make phone calls, they won't let me see my lawyers—"
"You tried to bribe a judge, Mother. You obstructed justice in a federal investigation. This is where you belong."
"I was protecting the family!" Her hands clenched into fists. "Everything I did was to protect what your grandfather built, what should have been yours—"
"By marrying a murderer?" The words came out colder than I'd intended. "By letting him kill Grandfather? By turning me into a bargaining chip?"
Vivian's face contorted. "I didn't know about your grandfather. Marcus—he told me it was a heart attack, the doctors said—"
"You didn't want to know." I kept my voice level, clinical. "Because knowing would have meant admitting you'd been played. That you'd let a con artist into the family and given him everything."
"I was trying to save the company!" She was shouting now. "After your grandfather died, I was alone, I had no one to help me, and Marcus—he seemed so capable, so—"
"So useful," I finished. "Until he wasn't. Until he started taking pieces for himself and you realized too late that you'd handed him the knife."