Too Late For Regret, Mr. Morrison

The heavy oak door of the Morrison estate felt like it weighed a ton. Carmen Blair pushed it open, her shoulders burning from the eighteen-hour shift at the charity hospital. She still smelled like antiseptic and stale coffee. Her scrubs were wrinkled, her feet aching in her cheap sneakers. All she wanted was a hot shower and to crawl into the bed that her husband rarely shared with her anymore.

She dropped her keys on the foyer table. The house was too quiet. The staff was usually buzzing around at this hour.

She climbed the grand staircase, her hand trailing up the cold mahogany banister. She walked down the long hallway toward the master bedroom. The door was slightly ajar.

A smell hit her before she even pushed the door open. Copper. Raw, metallic, and thick. Mixed with the heavy, cloying scent of Seraphina's signature perfume-Frédéric Malle's Portrait of a Lady.

Carmen's hand froze on the door handle. Her brain instantly shifted from exhausted wife to clinical observer. She pushed the door open.

The white Persian rug was ruined. A dark, sticky pool of red spread across the expensive fibers. Seraphina Astor-Vance lay sprawled on the floor, her white silk slip dress hiked up, stained crimson from the waist down. A silver fruit knife glinted in her right hand, the blade smeared with blood.

Carmen's eyes dropped to the wound. Her pulse steadied. The blood was too bright. The cut on Seraphina's forearm was superficial-barely a scratch, angled upward, typical of self-infliction. The blood pooling under her skirt was too voluminous for the tiny arm wound.

Seraphina's eyes snapped open. The calculated malice in them was fleeting, quickly replaced by a trembling, terrified performance.

"Carmen..." Seraphina's voice shook, a perfect tremor of fear and accusation. "Why... why would you do this?"

Carmen didn't answer. Her feet moved forward on their own. Surgeon mode. She needed to check the actual depth of the abdominal wound, if there even was one. She had to stop the bleeding.

She took one step onto the rug.

"Don't come near me!" Seraphina shrieked, scrambling backward, the knife raised defensively. "You already killed my baby! Are you going to kill me too to shut me up?"

Carmen stopped. The words registered, but the logic refused to form. "What are you talking about? I just walked in."

Heavy, rapid footsteps thundered up the stairs. The door slammed against the wall.

Kian Morrison stood in the doorway, his chest heaving, his dark hair disheveled. His gray eyes swept the room. They skipped right past Carmen and locked onto the bleeding woman on the floor.

"Kian!" Seraphina sobbed, reaching out her bloody hand toward him. With her other hand, she slid a crumpled piece of paper across the floor. "Our baby... it's gone... she pushed me..."

Kian's face drained of color, then flooded with a dark, violent red. He strode past Carmen without a glance.

Carmen grabbed his arm as he moved by. Her fingers dug into the expensive