Chapter 6
The single word hit harder than the golf club.
Don’t.
Not because Grant was lying.
Because Charles was afraid he wasn’t.
Before Eve could ask, the front doors opened.
Real police this time.
Scottsdale officers.
Two paramedics.
A woman from the county attorney’s office.
The house filled with radios, footsteps, questions.
Eve became a patient.
Grant became a suspect.
Sloane became a woman crying too loudly in a cream dress that still had Eve’s tag in the seam.
The paramedic who reached Eve first was a red-haired woman named Jen with calm eyes and gentle hands.
“Ma’am, I’m going to check you and the baby,” Jen said. “Can you tell me where you were struck?”
“Shoulder,” Eve said. “Upper arm. Side impact from table glass, not direct abdominal trauma.”
Jen paused.
“You medical?”
“No.”
“Lawyer?”
“No.”
Charles said, “She’s my daughter.”
Jen glanced at him.
“That wasn’t my question.”
For the first time all day, Eve almost smiled.
The baby moved again.
Strong.
Angry.
Present.
Jen found the heartbeat with a handheld Doppler near the curve of Eve’s belly.
The small, rapid sound filled the kitchen.
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
Everyone heard it.
Even Grant.
His face changed.
Not with love.
With calculation.
The fifth mini-payoff.
Grant wanted the baby alive.
That made the waiver more terrifying.
Eve looked at the torn documents on the floor.
“Take those,” she told Daniel.
“Already photographed,” he said.
“Originals too.”
“Of course.”
Sloane, now escorted back by the security officer, had stopped crying. Her mascara remained perfect. She held her cut finger wrapped in a cocktail napkin and stared at Charles like she was trying to remember where she had seen him vulnerable.
“You can’t keep me here,” she said.
Charles did not answer.
The county attorney’s investigator did.
“Actually, we can while officers determine whether you aided in coercion, unlawful restraint, and assault.”
“I didn’t touch her,” Sloane snapped.
Eve looked at the bracelet.
“No,” she said. “You just wore my jewelry while he did.”
Sloane’s eyes flashed.
There.
A real emotion.
Hate.
Not jealousy.
Not embarrassment.
May you like
Hate.
Eve did not understand it.
