Chapter 6
I nearly struck Ryan with the lamp.
He raised both hands.
“Emma, please. Mark stabbed me.”
Blood soaked through his shirt near his ribs.
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because Mark called me. He said he would hurt Claire unless I brought him the trust documents.”
A crash came from downstairs.
Ryan looked over his shoulder.
“He followed me inside.”
I locked the nursery door and called Detective Alvarez.
Ryan sank against the wall.
His face had turned gray.
“Keep pressure on the wound,” the dispatcher instructed.
I shoved a folded blanket against his side.
Despite everything he had done, I could not let him bleed to death beside Noah’s crib.
Claire called from the bedroom across the hall.
“Emma?”
“Stay inside with Sophie!”
Footsteps moved below us.
Then the smell of smoke entered the hallway.
Mark had started a fire in the kitchen.
“He’s forcing us out,” Ryan whispered.
Smoke curled beneath the nursery door.
Noah began to cry.
The sound carried through the house.
Mark shouted from downstairs.
“Bring me the baby, Emma, and everyone walks out alive.”
My entire body went cold.
Ryan tried to stand.
“You can’t fight him,” I said.
“I can slow him down.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“You shouldn’t.”
His answer surprised me.
He looked at Noah through the crib bars.
“But I’m his father, even if I haven’t acted like one.”
The smoke thickened.
I wrapped Noah in a blanket and opened the window.
The nursery was on the second floor.
The drop was too high.
But Claire’s porch roof extended beneath the next room.
If we crossed through Sophie’s bedroom, we could climb down.
I called Claire and told her the plan.
Ryan opened the nursery door.
“Go,” he said.
“What are you doing?”
“Making Mark think you’re still in here.”
He took the crying-baby recording from Noah’s white-noise machine and turned up the volume.
Then he locked himself inside the nursery.
I hated him for what he had done.
But as I crawled through the smoke toward Claire’s room, I knew he might be saving our lives.
Claire had already pushed Sophie onto the porch roof.
I handed Noah to her through the window.
Behind us, Mark kicked open the nursery door.
Ryan tackled him.
Their bodies struck the floor.
Mark screamed.
A gun fired.
I froze.
Then Ryan shouted, “Run!”
Claire slid down the porch column with Sophie clinging to her back.
I followed with Noah secured against my chest.
The moment my feet touched the ground, police cars rushed into the driveway.
Firefighters pulled Ryan from the house.
He had been shot in the shoulder.
Mark escaped through the back door, but a police dog found him hiding beneath a neighbor’s deck.
He was arrested with the gun still in his hand.
The fire destroyed most of the kitchen, but the rest of the house survived.
At the hospital, Ryan required surgery.
Detective Alvarez asked whether I wanted to see him.
I almost said no.
Then I remembered him locking himself inside the nursery.
I entered his room alone.
Ryan looked smaller in the hospital bed.
“I’m not forgiving you,” I said.
“I know.”
“Saving us tonight doesn’t erase what you did.”
“I know that too.”
“Why did you finally turn against them?”
He stared at the bandage over his shoulder.
“Because when Mom threw Noah, I saw what she used to do to me. For one second, I wanted to protect him.”
“But you protected her.”
“Yes.”
His eyes filled with tears.
“I heard her voice in my head telling me family loyalty mattered more than anything. I chose the person I feared instead of the child who needed me.”
I said nothing.
He swallowed.
“There’s something else you need to know. Dad never changed the trust. Mom forged the amendment.”
“Can you prove it?”
“His original lawyer is alive. Mom paid him to disappear after Dad died.”
“Where is he?”
“Vermont. His name is Samuel Price.”
Ryan gave me an address.
As I turned to leave, he spoke again.
“Emma, Mom has a second plan.”
I stopped.
“What plan?”
“If she can’t control Noah’s trust, she’ll destroy it. She gave Mark instructions to transfer everything before her trial.”
“Mark is in custody.”
May you like
Ryan shook his head.
“Mark wasn’t the only person helping her.”
