Chapter 1 - The Push
"GET AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER!"
I heard my own scream before I even understood what I had seen.
Chloe's small body stumbled off the curb as a black SUV tore past the intersection. Tires shrieked. A horn blasted. My seven-year-old daughter fell hard onto the pavement, missing the front bumper by less than a foot.
Vanessa stood behind her.
My husband's sister.
Her hands were still out.
I ran so fast I nearly fell.
"Chloe!"
She was crying, her palms scraped, one knee bleeding through her pink leggings.
I dropped beside her and pulled her into my arms.
Vanessa lifted both hands. "Sarah, calm down. She ran into the road herself."
"That is a lie!"
The voice came from a delivery driver climbing out of a white van parked across the street.
"I saw you push her," he said.
Vanessa stared at him. "Mind your own business."
"It became my business when you put a kid in traffic."
"You cannot prove anything."
Dave pointed through his windshield.
"My vehicle has a dash camera recording everything."
Vanessa's mouth tightened.
"Nobody will believe a delivery driver over me."
"How could you do this to your own family?"
Chloe suddenly grabbed my coat.
"Mommy..."
I bent down.
Her face was wet with tears.
"She said Daddy would think it was an accident."
My stomach dropped.
Mark pulled into the parking lot and saw Chloe in my arms, blood on her knee, Vanessa at the curb.
"What happened?"
Nobody answered fast enough.
Then Chloe looked at her father.
"Aunt Vanessa pushed me."
Mark went completely still.
Vanessa stepped toward him.
"Mark, please listen to me."
He looked at his sister like he had never seen her before.
"What did you do to my daughter?"
A police cruiser turned into the lot.
Vanessa took one step backward.
Then another.
And as the officer approached, Dave looked through the open door of his delivery van and frowned.
May you like
"My memory card," he said.
"It's gone."
