Chapter 3 - MICHAEL’S ACCIDENT
Michael Mercer’s story was polished by the time detectives reached him.
Emma had become emotional.
She wanted photographs near the overlook.
He warned her about the ice.
She stepped too close.
Ashley tried to help.
Emma slipped.
Michael panicked.
The storm made rescue impossible.
He and Ashley drove toward the ranger station for help.
Reasonable.
Almost.
Detective Laura Chen asked:
“Why didn’t you call emergency services?”
“No signal.”
“Your phone connected to a tower six minutes after the fall.”
Michael paused.
“I didn’t notice.”
Ashley sat beside him.
Silent.
Her hands shook.
Michael continued.
“My wife has been under tremendous stress.”
“What kind?”
“Pregnancy. Anxiety.”
“Was she suicidal?”
Ashley looked sharply at Michael.
Michael sighed.
“I don’t know.”
It was the beginning.
Not an accusation.
A suggestion.
Emma later learned Michael had spent months collecting material.
Messages where she said she was overwhelmed.
A therapy appointment after a panic episode.
An email:
Sometimes I feel like disappearing.
Written after her mother died.
Two years earlier.
Michael had preserved it.
Emma stared at the police summary from her hospital bed.
“He planned this.”
Attorney Julia Vance sat beside her.
Colonel Hayes stood near the window.
Emma had allowed him into the room only after police confirmed his credentials.
He still had not explained everything.
Julia asked:
“What makes you think Michael planned it?”
Emma looked toward Noah sleeping beneath warming lights.
“Because Ashley was there.”
“That proves?”
“She wasn’t supposed to be.”
The mountain weekend was meant to be an anniversary trip.
Michael claimed Ashley had driven up because of an urgent contract.
Emma had believed him.
Until the cliff.
Then Emma remembered something.
“My phone.”
Julia looked up.
“What?”
“Michael took it before we went hiking.”
“Why?”
“He said the battery was dying and he’d keep it warm inside his coat.”
Hayes turned.
“Did he return it?”
“No.”
Police never found Emma’s phone.
Michael claimed it went over the cliff.
Then Hayes finally spoke.
“There may be another reason he needed you isolated.”
Emma looked at him.
“Are you going to tell me who you are?”
Hayes swallowed.
“I knew your mother.”
Emma’s expression hardened.
“Everyone knew my mother.”
Claire Walker had been chairwoman of Walker Advanced Systems, a privately held defense-technology company founded by Emma’s grandfather.
Hayes shook his head.
“I knew her before all that.”
“How?”
“We were twenty-nine.”
Emma stared.
Hayes looked toward Noah.
Then back at her.
“Your mother and I were engaged.”
Emma stopped breathing.
“My father died before I was born.”
“That’s what you were told.”
Hayes’s voice broke.
“I was told something too.”
May you like
“What?”
“That you died.”
