Chapter 4 - My Funeral Started While I Was Still Breathing
By morning, the story Daniel created had spread across every local news page.
I was no longer a woman who had been pushed from a cliff.
I was a troubled pregnant wife who had frightened her devoted husband.
One headline called my survival a miracle.
Another called it a mental-health crisis.
Not one mentioned attempted murder.
Detective Mercer returned with two officers just after breakfast.
He told me the sheriff’s office had opened an inquiry.
He did not call it a criminal investigation.
I noticed the difference.
He also told me Daniel had voluntarily surrendered the SUV for inspection.
That sounded helpful until I asked whether my phone was inside.
“It was not located,” Mercer said.
“What about the dash camera?”
Mercer looked up.
“What dash camera?”
My pulse jumped.
“There is a camera mounted behind the rearview mirror.”
“Daniel installed it last year after someone hit us in a parking lot.”
Mercer wrote that down.
“The vehicle did not have a camera when we received it.”
I stared at him.
“Then he removed it.”
“Possibly.”
“Not possibly.”
“He removed it because it recorded what happened.”
Mercer told me they would search the SUV again.
I wanted to scream.
A missing camera was not evidence of innocence.
It was evidence of preparation.
Nora arrived shortly after Mercer left.
She brought clean clothes, a prepaid phone, and bad news.
“Someone called the hospital asking whether you were still admitted.”
“Who?”
“They claimed to be your insurance company.”
“Was it Daniel?”
“No idea.”
“Hospital security traced the number to a disposable phone.”
I looked toward the hallway.
“What do I do?”
Nora closed the door.
“You disappear before he can control the story any further.”
The idea sounded insane.
I was eight months pregnant with a broken wrist.
I needed medical monitoring.
I needed my home.
I needed my family.
But my home belonged to the man who pushed me.
My family was standing beside him on television.
And the police had handed him confirmation that I survived.
So I left St. Matthew’s under another patient’s coat through a staff exit shortly after two in the afternoon.
Nora drove.
Her search-and-rescue dog, Scout, sat in the back seat.
We went to a cabin owned by her brother outside Cedar Ridge.
It had no internet service and almost no cell signal.
For the first time in twenty-four hours, nobody knew exactly where I was.
That night, Nora connected a small antenna to the prepaid phone so we could access local news.
Daniel had scheduled a press conference outside our home.
He stood beneath the porch light with Grace, Vanessa, and my mother, Caroline Hart.
My mother looked perfectly composed.
That hurt more than I expected.
She had always been difficult.
She cared about appearances more than comfort.
But she was still my mother.
I thought seeing me nearly die would crack something inside her.
Instead, she placed one elegant hand on Daniel’s shoulder.
“We are asking the public to respect Emily’s privacy,” she said.
“She has suffered emotionally for some time.”
I stopped breathing.
Nora looked at me.
“Is that true?”
“No.”
My voice came out smaller than I wanted.
“My mother knows it isn’t true.”
Caroline continued.
“Our priority is the unborn child.”
Daniel lowered his head as if the sentence pained him.
Then he announced that he had filed an emergency petition in family court.
The petition asked for temporary authority over my medical decisions and finances.
He claimed I lacked the capacity to act in my own interests.
I felt the room go cold around me.
“He’s trying to take legal control of me,” I whispered.
Nora’s face hardened.
“And he started before you were even discharged.”
The next morning, I called my father’s former attorney, Samuel Reed.
He had handled the trust created after my father sold his manufacturing company.
Samuel was seventy-one and sounded half asleep until I told him Daniel pushed me.
Then his voice sharpened.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t tell you yet.”
“Good.”
That answer shocked me almost as much as Nora’s had.
“Why is everyone telling me to hide?”
“Because Daniel called me yesterday.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to know what happens to your voting shares if you die before the baby is born.”
The cabin became silent.
Nora stopped moving near the kitchen counter.
“What did you tell him?”
“That I would not discuss your estate while you were alive.”
“And what did he say?”
Samuel paused.
“He told me that might not be true for long.”
My stomach turned.
“Samuel, why does he care about my shares?”
“Because your father’s trust transfers temporary voting control to your surviving spouse if you die without a living child.”
I looked down at my stomach.
“So if both of us died—”
“Daniel would control forty-one percent of Hartwell Manufacturing for up to eighteen months while the trust is settled.”
I could barely speak.
“And with Vanessa’s shares?”
Samuel was silent.
That silence answered me.
Vanessa owned nine percent of the company.
Together, Daniel and Vanessa would control exactly fifty percent.
Not enough to own Hartwell.
Enough to freeze every major decision.
Enough to force a sale.
Enough to make hundreds of millions of dollars.
I thought of Daniel’s hands on my back.
I thought of Vanessa asking if the baby was gone.
Then Samuel said something that changed the size of the conspiracy.
“Emily, there is one more thing.”
“What?”
“Your mother called me too.”
May you like
My breath stopped.
“She asked the exact same question.”
