Chapter 18 - THE CHILD WE LOST
The photograph was dated two weeks before Amelia died.
I could not breathe.
“She wasn’t pregnant,” I said.
The nurse, Ellen Price, looked at me with painful sympathy.
“She was. About nine weeks.”
Tessa covered her mouth.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She planned to.” Ellen’s eyes filled. “But she was having bleeding. She wanted to know the pregnancy was viable first.”
I stared at the image.
Amelia had been carrying our second child when Grant arranged the crash.
The grief was old and brand new at the same time.
Ellen handed me another paper.
“Amelia came to my clinic because she didn’t trust Vale-connected hospitals. She gave me this.”
It was a handwritten note.
If I die, tell Elliot the second baby was loved before it had a name.
I sat on the courthouse steps.
Noah reached for the paper.
I let him touch the edge.
Tessa sat beside me.
For several minutes neither of us spoke.
Then my phone rang.
Ortiz.
“We found Grant.”
“Alive?”
“For now.”
He had been cornered at a private airfield outside Providence.
He was refusing to surrender.
“He says he’ll talk to you.”
“I have nothing to say to him.”
“He says he has proof Malcolm lied about the crash.”
I looked at Amelia’s note.
“What proof?”
“A recording from the truck driver.”
Tessa stood.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“He killed Amelia because she was protecting families like mine.”
I looked at Noah.
Then at Tessa.
We went with Ortiz.
At the airfield, Grant stood inside a hangar with a gun under his chin.
When he saw me, he laughed.
“Dad told you I ordered the crash?”
“Yes.”
“He lied.”
Grant tossed a phone across the floor.
A recording played.
Malcolm’s voice said:
Make sure the Mercer woman doesn’t reach Boston tonight.
May you like
Then another voice answered.
My father’s.
