Chapter 2: Two Heartbeats
The ambulance arrived within six minutes.
To Daniel, it felt like an hour.
Paramedics placed Sarah on a stretcher while she clutched his hand.
“I can’t feel her moving,” she whispered.
Daniel’s throat tightened.
“She’s going to be okay.”
He did not know that.
He said it because Sarah needed to hear it.
As the paramedics carried her outside, two police officers entered the house.
Jason immediately pointed toward the staircase.
“She lost her balance.”
Daniel turned so sharply that one officer stepped between them.
“Say that again,” Daniel said.
Jason backed away.
Richard crossed his arms.
“My daughter is emotional. Pregnancy has made her unstable.”
Daniel stared at him.
“You laughed while she was bleeding.”
Richard’s expression remained cold.
“You’re making assumptions.”
Daniel held up the phone.
“No. I’m preserving evidence.”
At the hospital, Sarah was rushed into emergency evaluation.
Daniel waited outside the examination room, still wearing a smear of her blood on his sleeve.
A nurse approached him.
“Mr. Whitmore?”
“Is the baby alive?”
“The doctor will speak with you.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
The door opened.
Dr. Helen Morris stepped into the hall.
“The baby still has a heartbeat.”
Daniel’s knees nearly gave out.
“But Sarah suffered placental trauma,” the doctor continued. “There is bleeding, and she’s having contractions. We’re trying to stop premature labor.”
“Can I see her?”
“For a moment.”
Sarah lay pale beneath a white blanket, monitors attached to her abdomen.
A rapid heartbeat filled the room.
Their daughter’s heartbeat.
Daniel pressed Sarah’s hand to his lips.
“She’s alive,” he whispered. “Both of you are alive.”
Sarah began to cry silently.
“I heard him laugh.”
“I know.”
“My own father laughed.”
Daniel sat beside her.
“We’re not going back.”
She closed her eyes.
“I should have listened to you. You told me not to go alone.”
“This is not your fault.”
“My phone…”
“I have it.”
Her eyes opened.
“I started recording before I went upstairs.”
“Why?”
“Because I heard Dad and Jason arguing in the study. They mentioned Mom’s will.”
Daniel looked toward the door.
“What exactly did you hear?”
“I don’t know. I put the phone in my cardigan pocket before I walked past the study. I wanted proof that they had hidden something.”
Daniel unlocked the phone.
The recording lasted twenty-seven minutes.
The assault occurred near the end.
He moved the playback marker to the beginning.
Richard’s voice filled the room.
“You should have destroyed the original will years ago.”
Jason answered, “I thought you did.”
“I destroyed the copy Miriam kept in the house. The attorney still has another.”
Sarah’s eyes widened.
Miriam had been their mother.
Then Jason said something that made Daniel stop breathing.
“If Sarah finds out Mom changed the will three days before the accident, she’ll ask why.”
Richard’s voice became low.
“Then make sure she never finds out what happened that night.”
Daniel paused the recording.
Sarah stared at him.
“My mother didn’t die in an accident,” she whispered.
Before Daniel could answer, a uniformed officer entered the room.
“Mrs. Whitmore, I need to ask about your fall.”
Daniel handed him the phone.
“You need to hear all of it.”
The officer listened for less than a minute before calling his supervisor.
May you like
But across town, Jason was already emptying the family safe.
And inside it was the one document that could connect him to Miriam Whitmore’s death.
