Chapter 10 - She Reached for the Wrong Thing
Margaret grabbed my wrist.
Renee grabbed Margaret.
Everything happened at once.
“Give me that phone!” Margaret shouted.
“Security!” Renee yelled.
I twisted away, pain shooting through my bruised side. Margaret’s fingers scraped the edge of the phone but missed it.
Two security officers rushed in and pulled her back.
“You have no right!” she screamed.
I held the phone against my chest.
“You just gave me every right I needed.”
Detective Chen arrived ten minutes later and copied the audio.
Margaret had already been escorted downstairs.
“She admitted planning a scare,” Chen said. “That’s useful. Not perfect, but useful.”
“Perfect would have been a mother-in-law who didn’t push me down stairs.”
Chen almost smiled. “Fair.”
Then Ethan arrived.
He was furious.
“Did you have my mother removed from the hospital?”
“She attacked me again.”
“She tried to take your phone.”
“You say that like it’s normal.”
He closed the door behind him.
Renee immediately opened it again.
“Door stays open,” she said.
Ethan ignored her.
He looked at me. “You’re trying to destroy everyone.”
“No. I’m trying to understand why my husband watched his mother shove me down the stairs.”
His shoulders stiffened.
I lowered my voice.
“I know you arrived before me. I know Carver was at the house. I know about the medical bag. I know about the pills.”
The anger drained from his face.
For the first time, he looked afraid.
“Claire,” he said, “you need to stop digging.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing.”
He stepped closer to my bed.
Renee moved toward the call button.
Then Ethan said something so quietly I almost missed it.
“If you saw the whole video, then you know why I nodded.”
My pulse hammered.
“No,” I said. “I know that you did.”
May you like
He stared at me for a long moment.
Then he whispered, “I never told her to push that hard.”
