Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEADI woke to the sound of a heartbeat.
Fast.
Steady.
Alive.
For several seconds, I didn’t know where I was.
Then I felt the hospital sheets beneath my hands and the dull ache spreading from my hip through my lower back.
The mountain returned all at once.
Michael’s hands.
The railing.
His voice.
It’s done.
I tried sitting up.
Pain stopped me.
“Claire?”
My sister Rachel appeared beside the bed.
Her eyes were swollen from crying.
“Where’s my baby?”
She caught my hand.
“He’s alive.”
I broke.
Rachel leaned over me as I sobbed into her shoulder.
“Where is he?”
“NICU. They had to do an emergency C-section.”
My hand went instinctively toward my stomach.
A bandage covered the incision.
“How early?”
“Thirty-four weeks and six days.”
“Can I see him?”
“You will.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing they don’t think he can beat.”
That sentence saved me from falling apart completely.
Rachel sat beside me.
“They said he weighed five pounds, one ounce. He’s breathing with some help, but the doctor thinks he’s strong.”
My son.
My little boy.
I had nearly died without seeing his face.
“What did you name him?” Rachel asked.
Michael and I had spent months debating names.
Suddenly, I wanted nothing he had chosen.
“Daniel.”
Rachel smiled through tears.
“After Dad?”
I nodded.
Our father had died when I was nineteen.
He had been the safest person I’d ever known.
Daniel deserved a name like that.
Then Rachel’s expression changed.
“What happened up there?”
I stared at the door.
“Is Michael here?”
“No.”
“Has he called?”
Rachel hesitated.
That hesitation frightened me.
“What?”
“Claire, Michael reported you missing last night.”
I stared at her.
“He what?”
“He called police around ten. Said you two argued at home and you drove away.”
My skin crawled.
“That’s impossible.”
“I know.”
“We drove to the overlook together.”
“Police know that now.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course he had prepared a story.
Michael had always been organized.
He color-coded vacation itineraries.
Saved receipts.
Scheduled dentist appointments six months ahead.
I used to call it reliability.
Now I understood it could also be planning.
Rachel lowered her voice.
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“He told your neighbors you’d been emotionally unstable during the pregnancy.”
I felt my entire body go rigid.
“He said what?”
“He told Mrs. Daniels next door that you’d been depressed. That you’d been saying you felt trapped.”
A laugh escaped me.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was monstrous.
“He’s trying to make it look like I hurt myself.”
Rachel squeezed my hand.
“Detective Harris wants to speak with you.”
“Now.”
“You just got out of surgery.”
“Now, Rachel.”
Ten minutes later, Detective Lena Harris entered.
She was in her forties, with dark hair pulled into a low ponytail and a calm expression that made me feel safer than sympathy would have.
Beside her stood a younger detective named Marcus Lee.
Harris sat down.
“Mrs. Bennett, I’m sorry about what happened.”
“Claire.”
“Claire. We can stop anytime you need.”
“I don’t want to stop.”
She opened a notebook.
“Tell me everything from the beginning.”
So I did.
I described breakfast.
Michael suggesting a drive.
His unusually good mood.
The overlook.
The push.
The phone call.
When I repeated the phrase It’s done, Detective Lee looked at Harris.
“Did you hear who he was speaking to?”
“No.”
“Male? Female?”
“I couldn’t tell.”
“Any idea who might have known you were going there?”
“No.”
Harris leaned forward.
“Why do you think your husband wanted you dead?”
That question hurt in a different way.
Because marriage trains you to defend your spouse.
Even after betrayal.
Even when the truth is standing in front of you.
“I have money.”
“How much?”
“My mother left me approximately four million dollars between investments and property. Some has appreciated.”
“And your husband?”
“He owns a marketing consultancy.”
“Successful?”
“I thought so.”
Again, that word.
Thought.
Detective Lee asked, “Any recent financial stress?”
“Michael said business was expanding.”
“Do you share accounts?”
“One household account. Most inherited assets remain separate because they were placed in trust.”
Harris looked interested.
“What happens to the trust if you die?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I know Michael believed most of it would pass to him.”
“Believed?”
“My mother had an attorney draft everything. David Chen. I signed documents, but she designed the trust structure before she died.”
Harris wrote the name.
“What about life insurance?”
“One point five million.”
“Beneficiary?”
“Michael.”
Neither detective reacted visibly.
But the room felt different.
“Claire,” Harris said, “did your husband recently encourage you to change any estate documents?”
My throat tightened.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“What changed?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You signed without reading?”
Shame burned my face.
“I trusted my husband.”
Harris didn’t judge me.
“That’s what marriage is supposed to allow.”
She closed her notebook.
“We recovered evidence at the overlook.”
“What evidence?”
“Tire impressions. Your scarf. Your phone.”
“You found my phone?”
“It was approximately forty feet from where rescuers located you.”
That didn’t make sense.
“I didn’t throw it.”
“We don’t think you did.”
Harris paused.
“The phone’s damaged, but our technicians may recover data.”
I thought of Michael’s call.
“Could it show where his phone was?”
“Possibly.”
“Then arrest him.”
“We need evidence strong enough to hold.”
“He tried to kill me.”
“I believe you understand what happened.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
Her answer was maddening because it was careful.
“What is Michael doing now?”
Harris glanced at Lee.
“He’s claiming he hasn’t seen you since yesterday afternoon.”
I nearly laughed again.
“He drove me there.”
“We’re working to prove it.”
A knock interrupted us.
A nurse entered.
“Claire? Your son is stable enough for you to visit NICU.”
Everything else disappeared.
Rachel helped transfer me to a wheelchair.
The hallway lights passed overhead as she pushed me toward the neonatal unit.
Through the glass, I saw tiny infants sleeping beneath warm lights.
A nurse wheeled me beside an incubator.
And there he was.
Daniel.
My son’s face was smaller than my palm.
A breathing tube rested beneath his nose.
His little chest rose and fell.
I placed two fingers through the opening and touched his hand.
He curled his fingers around one of mine.
I cried silently.
“I’m here,” I whispered.
Michael had tried to take this from me.
This moment.
This child.
This future.
Daniel tightened his tiny grip.
Something inside me hardened.
The frightened woman on the mountain had begged Michael to save her.
That woman was gone.
I bent closer to my son.
“Your father thinks we’re victims.”
Rachel stood behind me.
I looked at Daniel and made myself a promise.
“We’re going to prove him wrong.”
Two floors below us, Detective Harris received a call.
I didn’t know about it until later.
The search team had found security footage from a gas station fourteen miles from the mountain.
Michael’s SUV was clearly visible.
So was Michael.
And in the passenger seat, wearing the same beige maternity coat rescuers cut from my body—
was me.
His alibi had just begun to collapse.
May you like
But Michael wasn’t finished.
Neither was the person he had called.
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