My gaze flits around the room in search of her. I don’t know how she managed to do it, but she was there. I felt her. I felt the warmth of her hand through my clothes, seeping into my skin. During that time, I felt like she was alive and well.
She was there.
I work a thick swallow and force my lips to move. “I-I don’t remember,” I rasp. “I just remember being in a car…and there was fighting. Someone was yelling at me.” I pause, slamming my eyes shut, as more images come in flashes, but they don’t make sense. Just trees, so much dirt, and the car. The sound of metal crunching. I pry my eyes back open, trying to think clearly. “Then the next second, we were rolling.”
The doctor nods, a crease forming between his brows, as he waits for me to put the pieces of my jumbled mind together. I close my eyes, and the flashes come faster. Faces, pain, blood, Madison’s shirt, Vincent, the disgust on Baz’s face. It all comes rushing back, and tears leak down my cheeks.
“He stabbed me with something,” I whisper, bringing my trembling hand toward the searing pang radiating in my abdomen. I hiss out a curse, forgetting my injuries for a split second. “I don’t know what happened after. He was there one second, then he was gone.”
The doctor nods, concern written in the lines on his face. “Do you remember how you got out of the car? Did this other person help you out?”
“No.” I shake my head adamantly, even though it hurts to do so. “He left me there for dead. I think we…we were arguing…then the car crashed. I was…” I pause, choking on a sudden wave of emotion, as the memory slams into me. “I was in so much pain I couldn’t stop him when he stabbed me. She helped me. I heard her voice, and she helped me.”
The look of concern on the doctor’s face at this moment should be alarming, but I’m so caught up in the memories and the pain currently swarming my body like a hive of angry bees that I don’t pay it any mind. “Who did?”
“Madison. My sister. She helped me out of the car. She told me everything would be okay. I…I don’t know how she did it, but she dragged me out, and not long after, the car rolled. I would’ve died if it wasn’t for her.”
I hear someone’s sharp intake of breath, and when I look, I realize it’s my mother. My father has her wrapped in a tight embrace, and her head is nestled in his chest. It’s a protective embrace, but one I’ve never had the pleasure of experiencing from the man in question. The disapproval in his eyes is like a shock to the system and a slap back to reality.
The doctor clears his throat, glancing at the officers. One of them is rubbing at his temples, and the other is scribbling something down on a pad of paper. “Ms. Wright, you’re aware that your sister passed away years ago, correct?” The way the doctor asks the question—slowly and softly, as though he doesn’t want to rattle me—leaves the hairs at my nape standing at attention.
“Yes, I’m aware,” I grit. A sweltering wave of pain rolls through me, making it hard to breathe. If they don’t give me pain meds soon, I’m going to pass out. “But she was there. I saw her. She pulled me out of that car.” The words spew from my lips like projectile vomit, only I’m damning myself because I’m not coherent enough of the consequences that saying these things can have on me.
“Sometimes, our minds process and conjure fictional scenarios while in duress. Think of it as a defense mechanism for the brain. See, I think you were in so much pain, you imagined your sister there helping you. I think the man you were with helped you out before you passed out entirely, rolling with the vehicle.”
Anger tickles the back of my neck. “No. I’m certain it was her,” I breathe out through another wave of pain. This one is so blinding; it quite literally steals the air from my lungs. “We spoke. She grabbed my hand, for Christ’s sake. Vincent left me there to die. He stabbed me because I found out the truth. I know what they did.”
Slowly, the doctor’s brow quirks. It feels almost like a challenge of sorts. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice one of the officers takes a step forward, obviously interested in what I have to say. “And what is the truth?”
Cold sweat trickles down my temple, and my body starts to overheat with discomfort from my injuries. I need him to stop asking questions and help me. “They killed her!” I snap, digging my free hand into the sheets beneath me and gripping for strength. “I had the proof, but then…then he found me, and then the wreck happened. I think.” I bring my free hand to my head, rubbing at my temple vigorously. My blinding headache is making it impossible for me to think clearly. “I don’t have the proof anymore, but—but it was there. If someone can just go back and look, they’ll see it. They’ll understand.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” my dad mutters irritably. I shoot him a scathing glare. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him to fuck off. If he doesn’t believe me, he can go. They can both go. I didn’t ask them to come. I didn’t ask them to take time out of their precious lives to care for the daughter they had probably hoped was dead, too.
It’s hard to believe there was ever a time when my father and I were close. Time and death had the ability to change relationships in ways we never thought possible. It turns a grieving person’s soul into something new. It twists it until it’s something discarded. Nothing could prepare a person for death. We didn’t have the luxury of speeding past the hurt to reach the closure. We’re simply overtaken by sorrow. Grief rears its ugly head, and it unforgivably drowns us, and for a while, we start to wonder if staying under the water is better than ever breathing again.
That’s what Maddie’s death did to us. That’s what it was still doing to us.
“Ma’am, we’ve already—”
The doctor clears his throat, raising his hand between me and the officer, to stop him from finishing that sentence. “Please, Officer, let me handle this. My patient has just woken up out of a coma. I don’t need you two here rattling her.”
Though it’s obvious he doesn’t want to, the officer backs off. He steps back beside his partner, and their gazes sear holes into me. They don’t like me, that much is obvious. They feel no remorse for me, that my body is in shambles, as I lie in this bed.
“The police have already searched the entire area, and they found nothing. Just your car and a discarded shovel. There was nothing else.”
Tears of frustration sting my eyes. I want to bang my fists against this mattress and throw a tantrum like a child who isn’t getting her way, anything to let off steam. “That’s impossible.” I look back and forth between the officers and the doctor. “He…he must’ve gone back there and took it. He’s hiding it. You have to find him. That shirt was evidence. It was all I had. Don’t you understand? All of this was for nothing if I don’t get that shirt back.”
The doctor shakes his head. “That’s not possible. The man you were with, Mr. Hawthorne, sustained serious injuries. I can’t see him being able to hide this ‘proof’ you speak of.”
“Then he didn’t do it alone,” I insist, growing angrier with each passing second. Everyone in the room is staring at me like I’m a nutcase. “He must’ve had help. There’s no other explanation. Don’t you understand? I knew everything. I finally figured it out. You really think they were going to let me live after that? This would’ve ruined their lives. Their reputations.”