Chapter 16 - What She Did Before the Push
The news about my knee broke me for a day. I imagined the port gates, the steel decks, the ladders I'd climbed for years, and wondered whether my sister had taken my career along with my ability to walk normally.
Greer brought me a laptop and three claims files the next morning.
“Remote review,” she explained. “No stairs. No ladders. All that brain of yours still works.”
I hated how relieved I felt. Then I opened the first file and remembered that my work had never been only about climbing. It was about finding the truth in messy evidence. I knew how to do that from a chair.
Nora called that afternoon. Bellamy had recovered an older group-chat backup from before the rehearsal. This time there was no room to call the scissors harmless.
Sloan had written: “I loosened the ugly thing while she was distracted. Maybe she'll finally stop parading it around.”
Bellamy had answered: “Don't hurt her. Just get her out of the photos.”
Sloan's response was one word: “Relax.”
My hands went numb around the phone. The brace was the one piece of equipment holding my healing knee steady. She'd interfered with it to improve her photographs.
Investigators would have to determine what that meant legally, Nora said. The messages were evidence of what Sloan intended, not a replacement for medical or forensic analysis.
That evening I tried standing with the therapist and a walker. My right leg trembled. My good leg held. I took one tiny, awkward step.
“Again?” the therapist asked.
I shook my head, then changed my mind. “One more.”
When I sat down, I was exhausted and smiling through tears.
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Waiting in my inbox was a short email from Sloan, the first without insults: “Dad told me the plan was safe. I never meant for you to get hurt this badly.”
She'd finally admitted there was a plan.
