Chapter 147

Chapter 147
Chapter 147


By the time I got out of the shower and pulled on an old t-shirt and sleep shorts, exhaustion was pulling at my limbs but my mind remained stubbornly awake. I climbed into bed, pulling the covers up to my chin, and found myself staring at the empty space beside me—the space that had never truly belonged to Edward during our marriage, when he'd kept his distance even in sleep, when we'd shared a bed but never really shared anything at all.

Now, lying alone in my small apartment, I caught myself imagining what it would be like if he were here, if that space wasn't empty, if I could reach out in the darkness and find him there, solid and warm and real.

The fantasy was so vivid it hurt—his breathing in the quiet room, his body heat warming the sheets, his arm around me in sleep. The simple, ordinary intimacy of it, the kind I'd never had with him, the kind I'd convinced myself I didn't need. But I did need it. God help me, I needed it so much it felt like a physical ache.

I rolled onto my side, hugging my pillow, trying to quiet the longing that had taken up residence in my chest.

And that's when another thought intruded, cutting through the warmth like a shard of ice—the way Edward had looked at me several times today, his mouth opening as if to say something before he thought better of it and closed it again. In the supermarket, when I'd been comparing prices on soy sauce. In the kitchen, when he'd been drying his hands on my dish towel. Even at the door just before he left, that moment of hesitation before he'd finally turned away.

There was something he wasn't telling me. Something weighing on him that he'd deliberately chosen not to share today. And I thought I knew what it was—or at least, part of it.

Two days ago at the detention center, sitting across from me in that awful visiting room with its scratched plexiglass and uncomfortable chairs, he'd made me a promise. He'd told me, his voice hard with determination, that he was going to make Vera pay for what she'd done. That he was building a case, gathering evidence, that he would see her prosecuted for framing me, for sending George after me, for every calculated cruelty she'd inflicted.

At the time, I'd listened with my carefully neutral expression in place, not quite able to believe he meant it, half-convinced it was just pretty words designed to ease his own guilt. But thinking about it now, about the way he'd looked at me when he said it—the cold fury in his eyes, the absolute certainty in his voice—I realized he'd been completely serious. And the thought sent a strange warmth through me, a feeling I couldn't quite name but that felt dangerously close to hope.

For the first time in my life, someone was going to stand up for me. Someone was going to fight for me, was going to make sure the person who'd hurt me actually faced consequences instead of skating by on charm and crocodile tears. Edward was going to do what no one else ever had—not my parents, not the police when I'd tried to tell them about George, not anyone. He was going to make sure Vera answered for her crimes.

The warmth lasted only a moment before it curdled into something colder, something that made my breath catch and my hands clench in the sheets. Because if Edward was going after Vera, if he was really building a case against her, then he would need to know everything. Every crime, every calculated attack, every bit of damage she'd inflicted over the years. And there was one thing—one terrible, unbearable thing—that I'd never told anyone, not even him. Especially not him.

The memory rose up like a wave I couldn't hold back, dragging me under before I could brace myself against it.

Six months ago. The stairs at Frost Estate, polished hardwood gleaming in the afternoon light. The house empty except for Vera and me, everyone else out at various appointments and obligations. I'd been four months pregnant, just starting to show if you knew what to look for, my hand resting protectively over my still-flat stomach as I'd descended toward the first floor.

I'd been so careful. So cautious. Taking the stairs slowly, one hand on the railing, the other cradling the small life growing inside me. I'd been thinking about names, about nursery colors, about what it would be like to hold my baby for the first time. Foolish, hopeful thoughts. Dangerous thoughts, as it turned out.

Vera had been waiting at the top of the stairs. I remembered turning back to say something to her—something innocuous, something about dinner plans or maybe about a dress she'd wanted to borrow. I remembered her face, that sweet smile she always wore, the one that never quite reached her eyes. And I remembered, with crystalline clarity, the moment that smile had shifted into something else, something cold and calculating and utterly merciless.

She hadn't said a word. Hadn't given any warning. Just placed both hands on my back and shoved.

The memory of falling played out in horrible slow motion—the lurch of my stomach as I lost my balance, the desperate grab for the railing that missed by inches, the sharp edge of each stair as I tumbled down, the sickening crack when my hip hit the landing. And through it all, the terrible knowledge of what was happening, of what was being destroyed, of the small life I was failing to protect.

The physical pain had been bad—bruises that turned my whole side purple, cuts that needed stitches, a sprained wrist from trying to catch myself. But it was nothing compared to the pain that came later, in the hospital, when the doctor had delivered the news with professional sympathy in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Frost. The fall caused placental abruption. There was nothing we could do."

Nothing we could do. As if it had been an accident, a tragic twist of fate, instead of murder. Because that's what it was, wasn't it? Vera had killed my baby as surely as if she'd done it with her own hands.

But when I'd tried to tell them—tried to explain that it wasn't an accident, that Vera had pushed me—no one had believed me. Not the hospital staff, who'd exchanged those knowing looks that said they'd heard plenty of desperate women try to blame someone else for their miscarriages. Not Irene, who'd patted my hand with cold condescension and suggested I was "confused from the trauma." Not even Edward, who'd listened to my frantic explanation with a face like stone before saying, "Anna, I know you're upset, but accusing Vera won't bring the baby back."

The dismissal had been worse than the fall itself. To have everyone look at me with that mixture of pity and disapproval, to be treated like I was making excuses for my own carelessness, to watch Vera cry those perfect tears and play the devastated sister while I was cast as the bitter, jealous woman trying to drag her down—it had been unbearable.

So I'd stopped trying to make them understand. I'd swallowed the truth, locked it away somewhere deep and dark, and learned to live with the weight of it pressing on my chest every time I had to smile at Vera across the dinner table or listen to everyone praise her kindness and devotion.

But the baby. God, the baby. I'd never even gotten to know if it was a boy or a girl. Never gotten to feel it kick or see its face on an ultrasound screen. It had been stolen from me before I'd had a chance to properly love it, before anyone had acknowledged it as real and valuable and worth protecting. Just a "miscarriage," a "tragic accident," something to be dealt with and moved past as quickly as possible so everyone could get back to their comfortable lives.

Lying in my bed now, I curled into myself, pressing both hands against my abdomen where that small life had once been. Tears leaked hot and silent down my face, soaking into my pillow, and I didn't try to stop them.

For months I'd held this grief inside, had locked it away because giving voice to it meant admitting how completely alone I'd been, how thoroughly everyone had failed me, how deeply I'd been betrayed by every single person who should have protected me.

Edward had been the worst, in some ways. Because he'd been my husband. Because that baby had been his too. Because when I'd needed him most desperately, when I'd been lying in that hospital bed bleeding and broken and begging him to believe me, he'd chosen Vera's tears over my truth.

He'd chosen family loyalty and social convenience over his own wife and child. He'd looked at me like I was hysterical, unreasonable, someone whose word couldn't be trusted. And then he'd left—just walked out of that hospital room and left me there alone with my grief and my fury and my terrible, helpless knowledge of what had really happened.

I'd hated him for that. Hated him with an intensity that had frightened me, that had made me understand for the first time how people could commit violence in the name of pain. And I'd hated myself too, for being too weak to make them listen, for not fighting harder, for letting Vera win so completely that she didn't even have to pretend to be sorry.

But now—now Edward was finally, finally ready to stand up to Vera. Ready to make her face consequences. Ready to believe that she was capable of cruelty and calculation and malice. And if he was ready to believe that about the woman he'd known since childhood, the woman everyone loved and trusted and protected, then maybe—maybe—he would finally be ready to believe me about the stairs. About the baby. About the murder that everyone had written off as an accident.