Too Late For Regret, Mr. Booth

Four years had not been kind to November in New York.

Elise pulled Heaven's hood tighter against the wind cutting down Madison Avenue, her fingers adjusting the wool with the automatic precision of four years of practice. The child beneath the fabric was too pale, her lips too blue, her breath coming in shallow sips that never quite filled her lungs.

"Almost there, baby." Elise's voice was steady, practiced, the tone she'd perfected through sleepless nights and emergency room visits and the constant, grinding fear that each breath might be the last. "Dr. Frye is the best. He's going to fix your heart, just like we talked about."

Heaven nodded, too tired to speak, her small hand finding Elise's with familiar trust. She was four years old and she knew the names of seventeen different cardiac medications. She knew what a catheter was. She knew that sometimes mom cried in the bathroom where she thought no one could hear.

She didn't know about the brothers she'd lost. She didn't know about the father who thought she was dead. She didn't know that the woman walking beside her was legally nonexistent, a ghost haunting the margins of a life she'd once owned.

Mount Sinai Hospital rose before them, glass and steel pretending to be warmth. Elise guided Heaven through the revolving doors, past the information desk, toward the elevators that would carry them to the pediatric cardiology wing on three.

"Mommy, water?"

"Of course." Elise spotted the alcove at the corridor's end, the vending machines huddled together like mechanical sentinels. "Wait right here on this bench. Don't move. I'll be thirty seconds."

Heaven settled onto the padded seat, her legs swinging, too short to touch the floor. She pulled a worn picture book from her bag-a gift from Sister Margaret, something about a brave little engine-and began to read with the fierce concentration of a child who'd learned early that distraction was its own kind of medicine.

Elise walked to the coffee machine, her heels clicking against marble. She fumbled for change, her mind already drafting questions for Dr. Frye, already rehearsing the arguments she'd need to convince him to take Heaven's case despite the waiting lists, despite the insurance complications, despite everything.

The machine gurgled. Hot liquid filled her cup.

"-absolutely unacceptable. I don't care what the board says, tell them I'll triple the endowment."

The voice came from her right. Female. Sharp. Familiar in a way that made Elise's spine straighten before her conscious mind caught up.

She turned.

Jaida Powers stood three feet away, her phone pressed to her ear, her Chanel suit immaculate, her hair swept into that same effortless chignon Elise remembered from a lifetime ago. She was facing the window, her profile elegant, her expression irritated in the way of people who'd never been denied anything.

Elise's hand tightened on her coffee cup. The cardboard softened, threatened to collapse.

Jaida ended her call. She turned.

Their eyes met.

The coffee cup hit the floor. Jaida's phone followed, a $2,000 piece of technology shattering against marble with a sound like breaking bone.

"You-" Jaida's hand went to her throat, to the necklace that still hung there, the Booth matriarch's diamond catching the fluorescent light. "You can't-this isn't-"

Elise stepped forward. Her heel came down on the phone's screen, grinding glass into powder.

"Hello, Jaida." Her voice was ice. Controlled. Four years of rage compressed into two syllables. "Long time no see."

Jaida retreated until her back hit the window. Her face had gone the color of old parchment, her eyes darting toward the elevator, the security desk, any witness who might see this confrontation she hadn't prepared for.

"You're dead." The words squeaked out, childish, absurd. "The fire. They found your-there was a body-"

"Mistaken identity." Elise moved closer, close enough to smell Jaida's perfume, that same sharp scent from four years ago. "Happens more than you'd think. Especially when someone pays for the mistake."

She reached out. Jaida flinched, but Elise only adjusted her collar, her fingers brushing silk with deliberate intimacy. "You look well. The Booth family diet agrees with you. Tell me-" She leaned in, her lips almost touching Jaida's ear. "-do you still sleep through the night? Or do the babies wake you? The ones you helped kill?"

Jaida's breath came in shallow gasps. "Don't-don't you dare-this is Booth property. Callum sponsors this wing. One word from me and security-"

"Will do what?" Elise stepped back, her smile showing teeth. "Escort out the grieving mother? The widow you manufactured?" She turned, her coat sweeping behind her. "Don't worry, Jaida. I'm not here for you. Not yet. But when I am-" She looked back, one final glance. "-you'll know. You'll know exactly what I want, and you'll give it to me, because the alternative is worse than anything you can imagine."

She walked away, her heels steady, her coffee forgotten on the floor. Behind her, she heard Jaida stumble toward the stairwell, heard the frantic dialing of a replacement phone, heard the whispered terror of a woman who'd thought her sins were buried.

Elise rounded the corner toward Heaven's bench and found it empty.

Her heart stopped. Literally stopped, that same missed beat from four years ago, her body remembering trauma her mind had tried to forget.

"Heaven!"

She ran to the nurse's station, her composure cracking, her hands slamming against the counter. "My daughter. Four years old, pink coat, heart condition-she was right there, I left her for thirty seconds-"

The nurse looked up, her expression calm but concerned. "Ma'am, please. Your daughter started coughing, so I brought her over here to have a seat where I could keep an eye on her. She's right there." She gestured to a small chair just behind the counter, where Heaven was looking at a picture book, her coughing having subsided. Just then, the door to the VIP playroom a few feet away opened, and a nurse emerged, followed by a small, solemn boy. The boy's eyes, a startling shade of blue, immediately found Heaven. He stopped walking. The nurse at the station noticed his gaze. "Oh, Jacob, there you are. This is Heaven. She's waiting for her mother, too."

Elise's blood went cold. The name. The face. It couldn't be.

The nurse smiled kindly at Elise. "This is Jacob Booth. The philanthropist's son. Such a polite child, though he never smiles-"

Elise was already moving, her feet carrying her toward her daughter, her eyes locked on the boy.