Chapter 1 - THREE DAYS AFTER THEY BROKE HER LEG
Derek was still smiling when Abigail drove the hard edge of her cast into his chest.
He had leaned over the hospital bed close enough for her to smell his expensive aftershave.
“Three days in bed,” he had whispered, “and you still haven’t learned to obey.”
Abigail’s leg moved before she thought about the pain.
The white-and-navy brace caught Derek high in the chest and clipped his jaw. He stumbled backward into the visitor chair, one hand flying to his face.
Evelyn gasped.
Robert threw both hands up.
“Jesus, Abigail!”
Abigail sat upright against the pillows, red hair falling around her face, breathing hard.
Her fractured leg screamed beneath the brace.
She did not apologize.
Three nights earlier, Evelyn had shoved her backward while Robert held her arm.
Abigail had missed the edge of the sunken living-room step.
Her leg folded beneath her.
She still remembered the sound.
Then Derek standing over her while she screamed.
Not helping.
Not calling 911.
Saying:
“Let her learn to obey.”
It took eighteen minutes before Robert finally called an ambulance.
By then Evelyn and Derek had already agreed on the story.
Abigail slipped.
Nobody touched her.
She had been emotional.
She had been drinking wine.
All lies.
Evelyn stepped toward the hospital bed.
“You kicked your own husband.”
“He came into my face.”
“You’re making everything worse.”
Abigail reached for the phone lying beside her.
Evelyn lunged across the bed rail.
“Give me that.”
Abigail jerked it against her chest.
“Don’t touch me.”
Evelyn’s expression hardened.
“Stop acting abused. We broke your pride, not your life.”
Robert looked at his wife.
For the first time since entering the room, he seemed to hear what she had actually said.
Derek recovered and moved toward the other side of the bed.
“Give me the phone, Abby.”
He grabbed for her forearm.
Abigail knocked his hand away.
Then she slammed the phone onto speaker.
“You broke my leg, Derek. I recorded everything.”
His face changed.
Evelyn stopped moving.
Robert sat down slowly.
Abigail tapped the file.
Her own scream filled the room first.
Then Evelyn:
“Hold her still.”
Robert:
“Evelyn, enough.”
Then Derek’s voice.
Calm.
Close.
“Let her learn to obey.”
Nobody spoke.
A second voice came through the phone.
Not the recording.
The live call Abigail had connected before they arrived.
Her attorney, Nathan Cole.
“Abigail?”
“I’m here.”
“Detectives are already inside the house.”
Derek went white.
He lunged across the mattress.
Evelyn grabbed his arm.
Robert stared at the phone as though he had forgotten Abigail existed.
“What are they searching?” he whispered.
Abigail pulled the phone beyond Derek’s reach.
Nathan answered before she could.
“The home office first.”
Robert’s face collapsed.
Not Derek’s.
Not Evelyn’s.
May you like
Robert’s.
And Abigail suddenly understood that there was something inside that house even he had been afraid to find.
