Mid-sentence, Silas's phone rang.
"Looks like it's the hospital."
He cleared his throat, put on a face of pure ignorance, and answered. A second later, his expression shifted to shock.
"What did you say?"
His voice traveled a careful arc: calm to stunned, stunned to grief-stricken, grief-stricken to devastated. Then he hung up.
Zoe paced in frantic circles. "What happened? What is it? Don't you scare me like that!"
Silas's expression smoothed back to perfect calm.
"Relax."
"The hospital couldn't reach the registered owner of the car, so they found my number listed as the emergency contact. The owner's phone is probably under James's name. He's taking that Nicole girl to some clinic out of town for a prenatal checkup today, so he probably didn't pick up. That's why they called me instead."
He waved a dismissive hand. "That whole performance just now? Acting. I can't exactly let them think I heard my daughter-in-law and granddaughter were in a wreck and didn't bat an eye."
Zoe let out a small breath of relief. "So what did the hospital say? Are they both dead?"
Silas shook his head. A flicker of disappointment crossed his face.
"No."
"Neither of them. One's in critical condition, the other has minor injuries. What a shame. God really is blind." He sucked his teeth. "The hospital called because they want us to come in with money. Surgery alone is going to cost a fortune, and post-op recovery plus skin grafts will bleed us dry."
Zoe let out a sharp, contemptuous snort.
"A wreck that bad and they still didn't die?"
"Isn't that always the way. Good people die young, but cockroaches live forever!"
"Now what are we supposed to do? If they're not dead, they're dead weight. Half-alive is worse than gone. They'll drag us straight into the ground." Her voice climbed higher. "We have savings, sure, but that money is for our grandson. For his house, his car, his future wife. Not for Gay Fox and that worthless girl."
Silas picked up his phone and tapped through it with practiced efficiency.
"Don't worry. I've already thought this through."
"The one in critical condition has to be Gay. The minor injuries are probably Lily. All we have to do is make sure Gay's treatment fails. Once she's out of the picture, Lily actually becomes our little cash cow."
"Here's what we do. We pretend we fainted from the shock. As long as we don't show up and nobody pays, the outcome takes care of itself."
Now I finally understood why my daughter died in my previous life.
When the crash happened, I'd been out of my mind with terror, but maternal instinct took over. I'd unbuckled my seatbelt and thrown my body over hers, shielding her with everything I had.
But when I woke up, they told me Lily's injuries had been too severe. That she hadn't made it.
Even then, something hadn't sat right.
I was the one who should have been hurt worse. So why was she the one who died?
I'd investigated for months afterward and turned up nothing.
And my parents hadn't known a thing. Nobody contacted them. They didn't find out until Lily was already gone, stumbling across the accident on the news. They'd rushed to the hospital and arranged my surgery just in time.
If they'd arrived even a little later, I wouldn't have survived either.
My teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached. But I forced myself to breathe, to steady my hands, and picked up my phone.
I called them.
On the other end, Silas and Zoe nearly jumped out of their skin. They might as well have seen a ghost.
I didn't give either of them a chance to speak.
I sobbed so hard I could barely get the words out, gasping between every syllable, voice cracking and raw.
"Mom, Dad, what do I do? There was a crash. I... I don't even know how this happened."
"Where are you right now?"
"We're at the hospital and we really need you here. The doctor says treatment is going to cost so much money, but no matter how much it is, we can't give up!"
