Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1 — The ER and the Evidence
The hospital lights passing overhead felt like a strobe light burning into my retinas.
Every bump the gurney hit sent a shockwave of absolute agony through my skull, radiating from my shattered cheekbone down into my jaw.
I couldn't feel the left side of my face anymore. The numbness was terrifying, worse than the pain, because it meant the nerve damage was severe.
Voices swirled around me, professional and urgent, blending with the frantic, terrified voice of the man who had promised to spend the rest of his life with me.
“She has a severe facial trauma, blunt force!” a paramedic shouted as we burst through the emergency room doors. “Left orbital fracture suspected. Lacerations to the brow and cheek. She’s losing a lot of blood.”
“Wyatt,” I tried to say, but my mouth wouldn't form the words. My lips were swollen, slick with my own blood.
He was right there, his hand gripping mine so tightly it felt like a lifeline pulling me back from the edge of a very dark cliff.
“I’m here, Sadie. I’m right here, baby. I’m not letting go,” he choked out.
His expensive tailored shirt was ruined, stained crimson from holding my face against his chest on the porch.
Nurses swarmed the gurney. Scissors snipped at the neckline of my light blue dress—the dress I had bought with so much joy, hoping to announce a spring wedding.
“We need him out of here! Sir, you have to step back!” a nurse ordered, pushing Wyatt toward the swinging doors of the trauma bay.
“No! I’m not leaving her! Her family did this to her!” Wyatt roared, his voice cracking with a mixture of raw grief and absolute fury.
Before the doors closed, I managed to squeeze his hand one last time.
“Preserve... the evidence,” I mumbled, tasting copper.
“I will,” Wyatt promised, his eyes fierce. “I swear to God, Sadie. I will destroy them.”
The doors swung shut, and the chaos of the emergency room consumed me.
Doctors shined tiny, blinding lights into my right eye, checking my pupil response. They carefully avoided the left side of my face, where the swelling had completely sealed my eye shut.
“Sadie, can you hear me? I’m Dr. Aris. We’re going to get you a CT scan right now to check for intracranial bleeding. You’re safe here.”
I wanted to tell him that I hadn't been safe in my own parents' house, but the painkillers they pushed through my IV finally took hold, pulling me down into a heavy, dark sleep.
When I woke up, the harsh fluorescent lights had been dimmed.
The rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor filled the quiet room.
I was in a private recovery suite.
My head was wrapped in heavy bandages, and a cold compression device hummed gently against the left side of my face.
Wyatt was sitting in a chair beside the bed.
He hadn't washed his hands. They were still stained with dried blood.
He looked up, and when he saw my open right eye, tears spilled over his eyelashes, cutting clean tracks through the dust and dirt on his cheeks.
“You’re awake,” he whispered, leaning forward and resting his forehead gently against my right hand.
“How bad is it?” I asked. My voice sounded weak, gravelly from the breathing tube they must have used during surgery.
“You have a fractured zygomatic bone and an orbital blowout,” he said, his voice trembling. “They put three titanium plates in your cheek and jaw. But the doctor said your eye is safe. Your vision will recover.”
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.
“The dress,” I whispered.
“Bagged and tagged by the police,” Wyatt said instantly. “I remembered what you said. I made sure the hospital staff didn't throw it away. The police have the dress, they have the blood samples, and they took high-definition photos of your injuries before surgery.”
The door to the room opened quietly, and a man in a rumpled gray suit walked in, holding a notepad.
“Mr. Campbell? Miss Davis?” he asked, pulling a chair closer. “I’m Detective Miller, Columbus PD.”
“Have you arrested them?” Wyatt demanded, his voice hardening into steel.
“We’ve detained your father, Gregory Davis, and your mother, Brenda. Your sister Melanie is also at the precinct,” the detective said, looking at me with a mixture of pity and professional detachment.
“They tried to run?” I asked.
“No,” Detective Miller sighed. “They actually called 911 themselves about ten minutes after the ambulance left.”
Wyatt scoffed. “To play the victims.”
“Exactly,” Miller nodded. “Your father claimed that you, Sadie, had a psychotic break. He said you became violent, attacked your sister Melanie, and that he was forced to strike you with a brick in self-defense to protect his family.”
A cold wave of disgust washed over me.
They had planned this. Or at least, they were trying to orchestrate a cover-up on the fly.
“They’re lying,” I said, my voice shaking with anger. “Melanie wanted Wyatt. My parents wanted his money. They told him he had to leave me for her.”
“I know,” Detective Miller said, closing his notepad.
“You do?” Wyatt asked, confused.
“Your parents made one very critical mistake when they decided to assault you on a sunny Saturday afternoon,” Miller said, a grim smile touching his lips.
“They forgot that they don't live in a vacuum.”
I looked at Wyatt, and the memory of the moments before the ambulance arrived flooded back to me.
“The electrician,” I whispered.
“Yes, the utility worker,” Miller confirmed. “But he wasn't the only one.”
I remembered the window. The curtain shifting.
“There was a man in the window,” I said, my heart rate spiking on the monitor. “An old man. I saw him looking out from the living room just as I was loaded into the rig.”
Detective Miller frowned, his pen hovering over the paper.
“An old man? Are you sure, Sadie? Our officers swept the house. It was completely empty.”
May you like
Wyatt and I exchanged a chilling look.
If the house was empty, where did the man behind the curtain go?
