The Flower That Grew from Ashes novel Chapter 7

After Hackett left, Annelise lay in that hospital bed for six agonizing hours. From the dead of night until the first pale gray light of dawn bled through the window.

The anesthesia had completely worn off, and the incision on her lower abdomen throbbed in relentless waves, feeling as though thousands of tiny needles were churning inside her.

Yet she kept her eyes firmly shut, maintaining the steady, rhythmic breathing of someone still lost in a deep sleep.

Her body was motionless, but her mind was running like a high-speed machine in the dark, frantically untangling the horrifying influx of information from the past twenty-four hours—information that had utterly obliterated the last four years of her life.

The tubal ligation.

The murder.

Clarissa Sherwood.

Manuel.

And Hackett's final, freezing "I'm sorry."

She needed time to digest all of this, and more importantly, time to figure out her next move.

At six-thirty in the morning, the door handle turned softly. A familiar, gentle set of footsteps approached.

It was Harriet.

Annelise's tightly strung nerves relaxed for a fraction of a second.

Harriet was the Sargent family's oldest housekeeper; she had been there since Annelise could remember. When her parents died in a tragic accident and the once-great Sargent Group was fractured, Harriet was the only one who had stayed, following Annelise as she married into the Lehman family.

In this cold, calculating Lehman household, Harriet was the only person who genuinely cared for her, the only one who would shed a real tear for her pain.

"Sigh..."

A soft, heartbroken sigh drifted from the edge of the bed.

Annelise could smell the faint, comforting scent of the kitchen on Harriet's clothes, mingling with the warm aroma of the soup she had brought.

Seeing that Annelise was "still asleep," Harriet slowed her movements. She set the bowl on the nightstand, leaned over, and gently wiped Annelise's cheeks and palms with a warm towel.

Her touch was painfully slow and delicate, as though she were tending to a fragile piece of porcelain.

Looking at Annelise's pale face, she mumbled to herself, her voice thick with unshed tears.

"Why does my poor girl have to suffer so much?"

"You finally get the baby you prayed for, and then... it's just gone."

Beneath her closed eyelids, Annelise's eyes twitched slightly.

Assuming it was just an unconscious reaction to the surgery, Harriet reached over and carefully tucked the blankets in around her. Those rough but warm hands gently patted Annelise's shoulder, just like she used to do to coax her to sleep when she was a little girl.

Right then, the phone in Harriet's apron pocket began to buzz.

Annelise's nerves instantly pulled taut. She heard Harriet step into the corner of the room, lowering her voice as she answered. "Madam."

So it was Lizzie.

Hackett had ordered them destroyed, but the procedure had happened; there would be a paper trail. Dr. Lewis, Josie... they were living witnesses.

Second, she had to find out exactly who "Manuel" was. How old was this kid? Was he really Clarissa and Hackett's child?

And if he was, what role did Elias Lehman's "death" play in this monstrous deception? Was his death truly an accident, or was it a cover-up?

Third, and most importantly, she could not afford to spook them. She had to keep playing the gentle, kind, deeply in love wife whose heart was broken over losing her child. She had to hide behind Hackett and Clarissa's arrogant sense of control, digging up every piece of evidence she needed to destroy them.

She was going to make them pay the most agonizing price imaginable for what they had done!

While Annelise was lost in her thoughts, the door was pushed open once more.

This time, there were no footsteps. Instead, a sweet yet aggressively overpowering scent of gardenia flooded the room in an instant.

Annelise's heart violently seized.

Clarissa was the only one who wore that exact gardenia perfume every single day of the year.

She was here.

Annelise tightened her grip on the blankets beneath her. But her breathing remained completely steady.

A voice, so soft it practically dripped with honey, echoed by the bed, laced with just the right amount of worry and heartache.

"Is Anne still not awake?"

"Harriet, I came to see her."