Chapter 10 - THE EDGE
Grant dropped beside me and grabbed my waist.
Detective Ellis kept her weapon trained on Renata.
“Put the gun down.”
Renata looked at the ravine.
Then she looked at the road behind her.
She was calculating.
She always calculated.
Lily’s hand slipped another inch.
“Pull us up,” I screamed.
Grant dragged me backward.
My shoulder felt as if it were being torn from its socket.
I tightened my grip around Lily’s wrist.
“Look at me,” I told her.
“Do not look down.”
She looked into my eyes.
“You are stronger than she made you believe.”
Grant reached past me.
His fingers closed around Lily’s other arm.
Together, we pulled her onto the mud.
He wrapped himself around his daughter.
Lily buried her face in his chest.
For the first time in two years, she cried loudly.
Not silently.
Not carefully.
She screamed every ounce of pain she had been forced to swallow.
Renata stepped backward.
Detective Ellis moved toward her.
“It’s over.”
“No.”
Renata lifted the gun.
Grant turned his body to shield Lily.
I stood in front of them.
The weapon pointed directly at my chest.
“You destroyed my life,” Renata said.
“You did that yourself.”
Her finger tightened around the trigger.
A second officer emerged from the trees behind her.
“Drop it.”
Renata spun.
Detective Ellis fired.
The bullet struck Renata’s shoulder.
The gun fell into the mud.
She collapsed beside the guardrail.
Officers rushed forward and handcuffed her.
Even then, she continued screaming.
She called Grant ungrateful.
She called Lily a liar.
She called Claire weak.
Grant carried his daughter toward the ambulance.
Before climbing inside, Lily reached for me.
I joined them.
A paramedic examined the bruise on her wrist and the burn near her scalp.
Grant held her hand.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Lily looked at him.
“You didn’t listen.”
Four words.
They wounded him more deeply than anything Renata had said.
“You’re right,” he answered.
“I should have listened.”
Lily turned toward me.
“Emma listened.”
Grant nodded.
“Yes.”
“She did.”
At the hospital, detectives recorded Lily’s statement with a child psychologist present.
Her memory was detailed.
Renata had followed Claire’s SUV through the storm.
She struck the rear bumper repeatedly.
Claire lost control near the guardrail.
After the crash, Renata climbed down.
She removed Claire’s phone and left mother and daughter trapped.
A passing truck driver discovered the wreck almost an hour later.
Claire died before rescuers reached her.
Renata had believed Lily was too young and too traumatized to remember.
May you like
She had been wrong.
Lily remembered everything.
