Chapter 9
The gunshot was deafening.
I felt a searing pain in my left shoulder.
I fell back against the wall.
“Daniel!” Hannah screamed.
Everything happened at once.
Two officers fired.
Diane was hit twice in the chest.
She dropped the gun.
Stared down at the blood spreading across her shirt.
Then she looked at me.
Her eyes were wide.
Confused.
Like she couldn’t believe this was happening to her.
“Danny…” she whispered.
She collapsed to the floor.
My father ran to her.
“Diane! Diane, no!”
He dropped to his knees beside her.
Pressed his hands against the wounds.
But it was too late.
Her eyes stared up at the ceiling.
Unseeing.
Hannah ran to me.
“Daniel! Oh my God, you’re shot! Help! He’s shot!”
The next few minutes were a blur.
Paramedics arrived.
They cut my shirt off.
Pressed bandages against my shoulder.
Carried me out to the ambulance on a stretcher.
I looked back as they loaded me in.
My father was still kneeling beside Diane’s body.
His head in his hands.
Sobbing.
Hannah rode in the ambulance with me.
She held my good hand the whole way.
“You’re going to be okay,” she kept saying. “It went through. No major arteries. The doctor said you’re going to be fine. Liam is fine. The police are watching the house. He’s safe. Everything’s going to be okay.”
I woke up in a hospital room the next morning.
My shoulder was bandaged.
Throbbing.
But alive.
Hannah was asleep in the chair beside the bed.
Liam was in a small hospital bassinet next to her.
Also asleep.
My father was sitting in the corner.
His face was pale.
Worn out.
He looked like he had aged ten years in one night.
“Hey,” I whispered.
He stood up and came over to the bed.
“Hey, yourself. How do you feel?”
“Like I got shot. Which I guess I did.”
He tried to smile.
Failed.
“The doctor says you’ll make a full recovery. Six weeks of physical therapy and you’ll be as good as new.”
“Good. How are you doing, Dad?”
He sat down on the edge of the bed.
Stared at his hands.
“I don’t know, son. I really don’t. I loved her. For thirty-five years, I loved her. Even when I knew she was sick. Even when I knew what she was doing. I stayed. I tried to fix it. Tried to protect her. And in the end… I couldn’t protect anyone. She’s dead. Emily’s dead. You almost died. And I’m the reason it all happened. If I’d had the courage to stop her years ago… none of this would’ve happened.”
I reached over and put my good hand on his shoulder.
“You can’t blame yourself for what she did, Dad. She made her own choices. Bad ones. Horrible ones. But they were hers. Not yours.”
He covered my hand with his.
Tears spilled onto his cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, Daniel. For everything.”
“I know. And I forgive you. We’re going to get through this. All of us. Together.”
Over the next week, the whole story came out.
The FBI released their report.
Diane had started gambling ten years earlier.
A trip to Vegas with some friends.
She’d won big the first night.
And she’d been chasing that high ever since.
She’d lost their retirement savings.
Their second home.
Then she’d started borrowing from loan sharks.
When the debts got too big, she’d come up with the plan to sell Liam.
She’d approached the Hales through a mutual friend.
Arranged everything.
Paid off Dr. Chen with the secret from his past.
Paid Maria Gonzalez fifty thousand dollars to keep quiet.
And when Emily had found out and threatened to go to the police…
Diane had gone to the hospital.
They’d argued.
Emily had fallen.
Hit her head.
Instead of calling for help, Diane had smothered her with a pillow.
Then she’d faked the medical records.
Faked the funeral.
The casket had been filled with sandbags and weighted down so no one would suspect it was empty.
Emily’s body had been cremated in secret the day before I got home.
Her ashes were in an urn at the funeral home.
I picked them up the day I got out of the hospital.
I held the cold metal urn in my hands.
This was all that was left of the woman I loved.
The woman who had given me the greatest gift of my life.
I brought her home.
Put the urn on the mantel in the living room.
Right above the fireplace.
May you like
Where I could see her every day.
And where Liam would grow up knowing his mommy was always watching over him.
