Chapter 9
I don’t remember the drive to the hospital.
I don’t remember checking in at the ER.
I don’t remember the nurses leading me to the waiting room.
All I remember is the doctor coming out an hour later.
His face was serious.
“Mrs. Hale?” he said.
I stood up.
My legs were shaking.
“Your husband has a concussion,” he said. “And a stab wound to the abdomen. It missed his major organs, but he lost a lot of blood. He’s out of surgery now. He’s stable. He’s going to be okay. But he’s going to need a lot of rest. And he’s going to need you.”
I collapsed back into the chair.
Relief so strong it hurt washed over me.
He was alive.
He was going to be okay.
“Can I see him?” I said.
The doctor nodded.
“One person at a time,” he said. “He’s still sedated. He might not wake up for a few hours.”
I walked into Daniel’s room.
He was lying in the bed, pale, tubes coming out of his arms.
A bandage was wrapped around his head.
Another around his stomach.
I sat beside him and held his hand.
It was cold.
I kissed his knuckles.
“I’m here,” I whispered. “I’m right here. You’re safe. I love you. I’m never leaving you again.”
I sat there for three hours.
Jake came by to check on me.
He told me what the police had found at the house.
Margaret was dead.
She’d stabbed Daniel with a kitchen knife when he’d confronted her about his dad.
Then she’d turned the knife on herself.
The police had found the letters from Richard.
The flip phone.
All the bank records.
They’d confirmed everything.
The embezzlement.
The tampered meds.
The life insurance.
The text message.
They were officially reopening Richard Hale’s death as a homicide investigation.
Even with Margaret dead, they said.
For Daniel.
For Lila.
For the truth.
Lila showed up at the hospital a few hours later.
She stood in the doorway, scared to come in.
I waved her over.
She sat on the other side of Daniel’s bed.
She held his other hand and cried.
“I’m going to make this right,” she said quietly. “I’m going to go to rehab. I’m going to get better. I’m going to testify to whatever the police need. I’m going to spend the rest of my life making it up to you both. I promise.”
I nodded.
I didn’t forgive her yet.
But I believed her.
Daniel woke up the next morning.
He blinked a few times, confused.
Then he saw me.
He squeezed my hand.
“Hey,” he whispered.
“Hey,” I said, smiling through tears.
“Scared me,” he said.
“Scared me too,” I said.
He looked at Lila, who was asleep in the chair beside him.
“Is she okay?” he said.
“She will be,” I said.
Daniel nodded.
He was quiet for a minute.
“Did she do it?” he said softly. “Mom. Did she kill Dad?”
I squeezed his hand.
“The police think so,” I said. “They have enough to prove it. Even without her.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
A tear ran down his cheek.
“I just can’t believe it,” he said. “She was my mom. I loved her. How could she do all those things? To Dad. To me. To you. To our baby.”
He opened his eyes.
He looked right at me.
“Emily,” he said. “I want you to know. None of this was your fault. None of it. You were the best thing that ever happened to me. And I treated you like garbage. I let her come between us. I let her make me doubt you. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you. If you’ll let me.”
I leaned down and kissed him.
Softly.
Gently.
“I love you,” I said. “Of course I’ll let you. We’re a team. Remember? Through everything.”
Daniel stayed in the hospital for a week.
Lila checked herself into rehab the day he got out.
She called us every night.
She was doing well.
The police closed Richard’s case a month later.
They ruled it a homicide committed by Margaret Hale.
The IRS dropped all charges against Daniel once they saw the proof Margaret had falsified the returns without his knowledge.
The insurance company paid out the rest of the stolen money to Daniel’s company.
We got the house back.
We got the company back.
But we didn’t want any of it anymore.
Too many bad memories.
Too much pain.
We put the house on the market.
We sold the big downtown office of the construction company and moved to a smaller space, with a smaller team.
We wanted a fresh start.
Just the two of us.
Three months after that night at Margaret’s house, we went to see a new fertility specialist.
A good one.
Recommended by Mia.
She ran all the tests.
She looked at the old pharmacy records of the swapped meds.
She smiled at us when she was done.
“Good news,” she said. “The birth control Margaret was giving you was low dose. It did some temporary damage to your cycle, but it’s reversible. With a little help, you have a 70% chance of conceiving in the next six months. You’re not broken, Emily. Far from it.”
I cried.
Daniel cried.
We held each other in the doctor’s office, laughing and crying at the same time.
After six years of hell.
May you like
After lies and betrayal and death.
We finally had something to hope for.
