Chapter 6 - MY FATHER DID NOT SAVE ME
The first captain to arrive recognized my name and called my father before anyone could stop him. By the time paramedics confirmed that my daughter’s heartbeat remained strong, three senior officers and a deputy chief were standing near the mansion gate.
Then Commissioner Gavin Potter arrived.
He stepped out of an unmarked vehicle without his jacket, his silver hair windblown, his face carrying a kind of fear I had never seen on him in public. His eyes went first to my stomach, then to the shattered windshield, the ruined baby seat, and finally to Jason.
For one dangerous second, my father looked capable of forgetting every rule he had spent his career enforcing.
I stepped between them.
“Dad, no.”
Jason actually moved backward.
My father stopped because I asked him to, not because Jason deserved restraint.
“This cannot be your case,” I said. “You have to recuse yourself.”
“Nora, he stood there while—”
“I know. That’s why you cannot touch it.”
The officers around us went silent.
I had spent years running from being Commissioner Potter’s daughter. Now I was using everything he had taught me about power to prevent that power from contaminating the truth.
My father turned to the deputy chief. “Transfer jurisdictional oversight. Notify the state attorney. I want a written recusal before sundown.”
Then he removed his badge wallet and handed it to his driver.
Only after that did he come to me as my father.
He placed both hands carefully around my face and asked whether the baby was moving. I nodded. His eyes filled, but he did not allow himself to cry until I leaned into him.
Jason watched from beside the garage while officers photographed the driveway and secured the broken car. Chelsea sat on the curb, her rage replaced by confusion. She kept looking at Jason, waiting for him to reassure her.
He never did.
When an officer asked whether he knew why Chelsea had entered the property, Jason said, “She must have followed Nora through the gate.”
Chelsea’s head snapped up.
“You gave me the code.”
Jason did not look at her.
“I have no idea what she’s talking about.”
That was the moment Chelsea learned what I had already understood.
May you like
Jason’s first instinct was never to protect the woman who loved him.
It was to identify which woman he could sacrifice.
