Chapter 2
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Margaret’s face went completely white.
Not angry.
Not offended.
Terrified.
“What did you say?” she whispered.
Dr. Reynolds stepped between my bed and her.
“You heard me.”
Margaret laughed once, but the sound was thin and nervous.
“My son is under heavy medication. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
“Apparently he knew enough to ask for Detective Harris by name.”
That made her stop breathing.
I watched her fingers tighten around the papers.
“Who is Detective Harris?” I asked.
Margaret turned toward me.
There was something in her eyes I had never seen before.
Hatred.
Not the cold dislike she had shown me since Ethan brought me home six years earlier.
This was different.
This was fear turning into hatred because I was still alive.
Dr. Reynolds looked at one of the nurses.
“Call security again.”
Margaret moved toward the door.
The nurse blocked her.
“You’ll need to remain here.”
“You cannot hold me.”
“No,” Dr. Reynolds said. “But the police can.”
As if summoned by his words, two uniformed officers appeared in the hallway.
Margaret immediately changed.
Her shoulders dropped.
Her voice became soft.
“My daughter-in-law is confused. We were in a terrible accident. She’s upset.”
I stared at her.
“You weren’t even in the car.”
Her eyes snapped toward me.
One of the officers noticed.
“Mrs. Carter, are you saying this woman wasn’t involved in the collision?”
“I don’t know what she did.”
I swallowed against the pain in my throat.
“But Ethan and I were alone in the car.”
Margaret smiled sadly at the officer.
“My son has been struggling emotionally.”
“Stop,” I whispered.
She kept talking.
“He has been under enormous pressure from his wife.”
“Stop.”
“Financial pressure. Marital pressure.”
“Shut up!”
Pain ripped through my abdomen when I tried sitting up.
A nurse rushed to steady me.
Margaret watched me struggle.
For half a second, she smiled.
The officer saw it too.
“Ma’am,” he said sharply, “step outside.”
She resisted.
Then another man appeared behind the officers.
Gray suit.
Dark tie.
Hard eyes.
Detective Harris.
I recognized him immediately, although I had never met him.
He had been on television three years earlier after breaking a major financial fraud case involving one of Boston’s largest real estate firms.
Why had Ethan asked for him?
Harris looked at Margaret.
“Mrs. Carter.”
She stiffened.
“Detective.”
“You remember me.”
“Of course.”
That surprised me.
Harris glanced toward me.
“Mrs. Emily Carter?”
“Yes.”
“I need to speak with you as soon as your doctor clears it.”
“About the crash?”
He hesitated.
“About several things.”
Margaret stepped forward.
“My attorney needs to be present.”
“You’re free to call one.”
“Then I’m leaving.”
“No.”
The word came from the hallway.
Everyone turned.
A second detective stood there holding a clear plastic evidence bag.
Inside it was a black smartphone.
Margaret stared at it.
Her confidence vanished.
Detective Harris noticed.
“You recognize that phone?”
“No.”
Too fast.
Far too fast.
The other detective walked closer.
“It was found beneath the passenger seat of the Carter vehicle.”
My heart jumped.
“That isn’t mine.”
Harris looked at me.
“Your husband says it isn’t his either.”
Margaret said nothing.
The detective held the bag up.
The phone case had a tiny gold letter M attached to the back.
I had seen it before.
At Christmas.
At dinner.
In Margaret’s hand.
“That’s hers,” I whispered.
Everyone looked at me.
Margaret’s lips parted.
“You’re mistaken.”
“No.”
My voice became stronger.
“You left it on our kitchen counter last month. Ethan joked that the giant M was so you’d never confuse it with anyone else’s.”
“Emily—”
“That is your phone.”
Detective Harris took the evidence bag.
“Interesting.”
Margaret stepped toward him.
“That proves nothing. I might have left it in their vehicle days ago.”
Harris nodded calmly.
“You might have.”
For some reason, his agreement frightened her more than an accusation.
He continued.
“Except Ethan told us he watched you put it under the passenger seat approximately five minutes before the brakes failed.”
My skin turned cold.
I looked at Margaret.
She looked at me.
And suddenly I remembered.
The parking garage.
Ethan and I had attended dinner at his parents’ house that evening.
When we were leaving, Margaret had followed us into the garage.
She said she wanted to apologize.
That alone had been strange.
Margaret never apologized.
She had hugged Ethan.
Then she had opened the passenger door beside me.
I thought she was leaning in to hug me too.
Instead she had dropped her purse.
Things spilled onto the floor.
Lipstick.
Keys.
A compact mirror.
Her phone.
Or what I assumed was her phone.
She spent almost a minute crouched beside my seat gathering everything.
Then she smiled.
“Drive safely.”
Twenty-five minutes later, we were heading down a steep road outside Brookline when Ethan pressed the brake pedal.
Nothing happened.
He pressed again.
“Emily.”
I had never heard fear in his voice like that.
“What?”
“The brakes.”
A delivery truck appeared ahead.
Ethan swerved.
The world turned sideways.
Glass exploded.
Metal screamed.
Then darkness.
My breath became shallow.
“She put something in our car.”
Margaret shook her head.
“No.”
“You were under my seat.”
“I dropped my purse.”
Detective Harris stepped closer to her.
“Your phone contains an application connected to a wireless diagnostic transmitter.”
Margaret’s expression collapsed.
Harris continued.
“The transmitter was attached to the electronic braking control system.”
I felt sick.
“Someone controlled our brakes?”
“We’re still examining the vehicle.”
“Answer me.”
Harris looked at me carefully.
“Yes.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Margaret suddenly pointed at Ethan’s room somewhere down the hallway.
“He is lying.”
“My husband?”
“He did this.”
Every person in the room went silent.
She realized too late what she had said.
Harris narrowed his eyes.
“Did what?”
Margaret looked trapped.
“He… he installed that device.”
“You just said you knew nothing about any device.”
“I’m guessing.”
“Very specific guess.”
Her face hardened.
“I want my attorney.”
Harris nodded.
“Good idea.”
He gestured toward the officers.
They moved beside her.
She looked at me before leaving.
The hatred was back.
But there was something else now.
A warning.
“Emily,” she said quietly, “ask your husband what he promised me three months ago.”
Harris told her to stop talking.
But Margaret kept her eyes on mine.
“Ask him why he changed his will.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
Then she was taken into the hallway.
I called after her.
“What will?”
She disappeared.
Detective Harris watched me.
“You didn’t know?”
I shook my head.
He pulled a chair beside my bed.
“Mrs. Carter, before the crash, was there anything unusual happening in your family?”
I almost laughed.
Everything had been unusual.
Ethan had been distant for months.
Late meetings.
Private phone calls.
Arguments with Margaret behind closed doors.
Then there was the nursery.
The room at the end of our second-floor hallway.
The room Ethan had suddenly ordered renovated three weeks earlier.
I had asked why.
He said he wanted to surprise me.
We had been trying to have a baby for years.
Then my surgery happened.
Not because of the crash.
The surgery had already been scheduled.
A procedure that might finally make pregnancy possible.
But the crash occurred while Ethan was driving me to the hospital.
That was why we had been on the road so early.
And that was why Margaret’s paperwork terrified me.
Custodial authority.
Custody of who?
There was no child.
Unless—
I looked at Dr. Reynolds.
He seemed uncomfortable.
“Doctor.”
He glanced at Harris.
Then back at me.
“What does custodial authority mean?”
“Legally? It can mean several things.”
“No.”
I stared at him.
“I mean why was it in those papers?”
He hesitated.
That was enough.
“You know.”
“Emily—”
“Tell me.”
Dr. Reynolds pulled a chair closer.
“You were supposed to receive information after your procedure.”
“What information?”
He lowered his voice.
“During your preoperative testing yesterday morning, we ran a standard blood panel.”
My pulse accelerated.
“And?”
“Your pregnancy test was positive.”
I couldn’t speak.
The nurse covered her mouth.
Harris looked down.
I stared at Dr. Reynolds.
“No.”
“We repeated it.”
“No.”
“Emily, you’re pregnant.”
A sound escaped my throat.
Half laugh.
Half sob.
I put both hands over my mouth.
After four years.
Three failed treatments.
Two miscarriages.
Hundreds of nights crying silently beside Ethan because I didn’t want him to hear me breaking.
I was pregnant.
“Does Ethan know?”
Dr. Reynolds nodded slowly.
“We told him shortly after he regained consciousness.”
I started crying.
Not delicate tears.
I sobbed so hard my stitches burned.
“He knows?”
“Yes.”
“And the baby?”
“Right now, everything looks stable.”
I closed my eyes.
My baby had survived the crash.
Then another thought hit me.
I opened my eyes.
“Margaret knew.”
Nobody answered.
“She knew before she came into this room.”
Harris’s expression changed.
“The paperwork mentioned custody.”
“Yes.”
“She brought it less than an hour after you woke up.”
“Yes.”
“And she knew about the pregnancy?”
Dr. Reynolds looked deeply troubled.
“There’s something else.”
Of course there was.
“What?”
“Someone accessed your medical record approximately forty minutes before Margaret entered your room.”
Harris stood.
“Who?”
“We’re checking.”
“From inside the hospital?”
“Yes.”
My blood ran cold.
Margaret had not come here alone.
Someone had helped her.
Harris stepped into the hallway and started making calls.
I lay back, shaking.
A few minutes later, my room phone rang.
The nurse reached for it.
I stopped her.
“I’ll answer.”
She handed me the receiver.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
Then breathing.
Slow.
Controlled.
“Who is this?”
Silence.
I almost hung up.
Then a distorted voice whispered:
“You should have signed.”
The line went dead.
My hand started shaking.
Harris rushed back inside when he saw my face.
“What happened?”
I told him.
He took the receiver.
“Trace the call.”
The nurse ran toward the desk.
Harris looked at me.
“We’re moving you to a secured room.”
“What about Ethan?”
His expression tightened.
“What?”
“Take me to my husband.”
“You’re not medically cleared—”
“I need to see him.”
“Emily.”
“He knows something.”
I gripped the blanket.
“He changed his will. He knew his mother was involved. He asked for you when he woke up. And somehow Margaret knew about my pregnancy before I did.”
Harris didn’t argue.
Ten minutes later, a nurse pushed my wheelchair down the hall.
Two officers walked beside us.
We stopped outside a room guarded by another policeman.
My heart pounded.
The door opened.
Ethan lay beneath white blankets.
His face was bruised.
His left arm was bandaged.
When he saw me, his eyes filled instantly.
“Emily.”
I wanted to run to him.
I wanted to scream at him.
Instead I whispered, “Why did your mother try to kill us?”
His face crumpled.
“She wasn’t trying to kill us.”
I stared at him.
“Then what was she trying to do?”
Ethan looked at Detective Harris.
May you like
Then at me.
“She was trying to kill you.”
