Chapter 1 - TELL THEM YOU WERE DRIVING
Emma Carter woke to the sound of her mother’s voice before she fully understood where she was.
“Tell the police YOU were driving!”
Linda had both hands twisted into the front of Emma’s hospital gown, pulling her forward against the pillows.
Pain tore through Emma’s ribs.
Her forehead throbbed beneath a bandage. Her right wrist was locked inside a purple cast. A monitor beside the bed changed rhythm as her pulse jumped.
“Mom—stop.”
Linda released the gown only long enough to glance toward the ICU doorway.
Her father, Richard, stood behind her wearing the green quilted vest he had apparently thrown on before leaving home.
He said nothing.
That frightened Emma almost as much as Linda’s hands.
“Where’s Tyler?”
Linda’s face tightened.
“He’s fine.”
Emma closed her eyes.
Fragments came back.
Rain on the windshield.
Tyler’s hands gripping the wheel.
Her shouting his name.
A guardrail.
The impossible sensation of suddenly being alone inside a moving vehicle.
Then darkness.
Emma reached toward the nurse-call button.
Linda grabbed her uninjured wrist.
“Tyler’s future matters more than your pride.”
Emma stared at her mother.
Pride?
She had fractures.
Concussion symptoms.
A cast.
And apparently the problem was pride.
Richard finally spoke.
“Linda.”
Just her name.
Not:
Let go of our daughter.
Not:
Emma, are you okay?
Linda looked at him.
He looked away.
Emma pulled her hand back.
“Did you already tell them I was driving?”
Nobody answered.
That was answer enough.
Footsteps stopped outside.
The nurse at the doorway shifted aside.
Officer Daniel Mason entered holding a tablet.
Linda’s expression changed immediately.
Polite.
Concerned.
Maternal.
“Officer, she’s still medicated. This probably isn’t the best—”
Emma knocked Linda’s hand away.
“Then explain the dashcam.”
Silence.
Mason walked closer.
He tapped the tablet.
The image showed the inside of Emma’s car minutes before the crash.
Tyler was behind the wheel.
Emma was in the passenger seat.
Linda froze.
Richard sat down hard in the visitor chair.
Mason looked at them.
“The camera recorded everything.”
He advanced the video.
Tyler was shouting.
Emma was reaching for the dashboard.
Then, while the car was still moving, Tyler opened the driver’s door.
Linda leaned toward the screen.
“No…”
Tyler jumped.
The driver’s seat became empty.
The car kept moving.
Emma remained trapped behind her seat belt as the road curved ahead.
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For the first time since Emma had opened her eyes, Linda stopped trying to save Tyler.
Because now she understood what he had actually left his sister to survive.
