The corridors of Green Hearts Hospital in London breathed with a quiet, relentless urgency. Monitors chimed somewhere in the distance—steady, stubborn beeps that sounded like borrowed heartbeats refusing to give up. The sharp, familiar bite of antiseptic hung in the air, softened only slightly by the fading sweetness of flowers left behind at the nurses' stations by hopeful families. Footsteps whispered over the polished floors, their reflections stretching long and thin beneath the warm overhead lights.
Afternoon sunlight spilled through the tall windows in slow, golden sheets, sliding across the walls as if searching for something it had almost forgotten. It stretched down the corridor and stopped at Room 407. That was where Frank Bennett had finally come back.
