Chapter 2
The ambulance arrived in chaos.
Paramedics pushed through mourners who had come to bury Emily and now stood pressed against the chapel walls, pale and trembling.
Jonathan tried to climb into the ambulance.
Emily screamed.
It was not loud.
She was too weak for loud.
But it was enough.
The paramedic looked at him.
“Sir, step back.”
“I’m her husband.”
Emily gripped my wrist.
“No.”
That one word changed everything.
The paramedic looked at me.
“Are you family?”
“No,” Jonathan snapped. “She is the maid.”
Emily’s eyes locked on mine.
“Clara stays.”
I climbed in before anyone could stop me.
Jonathan shouted behind us.
Margaret cried that Emily was confused from lack of oxygen.
The ambulance doors slammed shut.
Then we were moving.
Emily lay under a silver blanket while a paramedic checked her pulse, blood pressure, oxygen.
I held her hand.
Her skin felt cold.
Too cold.
“Stay with me,” I whispered.
Her eyes fluttered.
“Lily.”
“I’ll call someone.”
“No police at house,” she breathed.
I froze.
“What do you mean?”
She swallowed with pain.
“Jonathan knows them.”
The paramedic glanced at me.
I understood then that Emily had been planning.
Even half-dead, she was still trying to protect her child.
“Who do I call?” I asked.
Emily’s lips moved.
“Daniel.”
My stomach tightened.
“Your brother?”
She nodded.
I had never met Daniel Pierce, but I had heard his name once.
Only once.
Emily had whispered it into the phone late at night, crying in the library.
Jonathan had found out and smashed the phone against the wall.
After that, Emily never mentioned her brother again.
I took Emily’s phone from the emergency bag the chapel staff had handed me.
It was locked.
Emily saw me struggling.
“Six. Four. Lily’s birthday.”
I unlocked it.
Twenty missed calls from Jonathan.
No calls to Daniel.
I found his name and called.
He answered on the first ring.
“Emily?”
His voice broke on her name.
“This is Clara,” I said quickly. “I work for your sister.”
Silence.
Then, sharp and terrified, “Where is she?”
“She’s alive. We’re in an ambulance. They tried to bury her.”
A chair crashed on his end.
“What?”
“She said call you. She said Lily is in danger.”
His breathing changed.
“Where is Lily?”
“At the Harrington house.”
“I’m twenty minutes away.”
“No,” I said. “Jonathan may have people watching.”
“I don’t care.”
“Emily does.”
That stopped him.
I put the phone near Emily’s mouth.
“Daniel,” she whispered.
“Oh my God,” he said. “Em.”
“Get Lily,” she breathed. “Trust Clara.”
“I will. I swear.”
The call ended.
At the hospital, everything moved fast.
Doctors rushed Emily behind double doors.
A nurse tried to keep me in the waiting room.
But Emily would not release my hand until a doctor promised no one named Harrington could enter without her consent.
I sat outside with blood on my uniform and splinters in my palms.
People stared.
I did not care.
Thirty minutes later, Jonathan arrived with Margaret and two lawyers.
Not relatives.
Lawyers.
That told everyone what kind of husband he was.
He saw me and walked straight over.
“You have no idea what you’ve done.”
I stood.
“I saved your wife.”
“You humiliated my family.”
“Your wife was breathing inside a coffin.”
His jaw tightened.
Margaret stepped beside him.
Her face was powdered and perfect again.
“You are confused, Clara,” she said softly. “You were emotional. You heard noises. Emily has a rare condition. Catalepsy. The doctors missed it.”
I stared at her.
“Then why did Emily say the tea?”
Her smile froze.
Jonathan’s hand clamped around Margaret’s wrist.
Only for a moment.
But enough.
A doctor entered the waiting room.
“Who is here for Emily Harrington?”
Jonathan stepped forward.
“I’m her husband.”
The doctor looked at his chart.
“She has requested that Clara Reyes remain her emergency contact for the moment.”
Jonathan’s face darkened.
“That woman is staff.”
The doctor did not blink.
“She is the person Mrs. Harrington asked for.”
I stepped forward.
“How is she?”
“She is stable, but weak. We found heavy sedatives in her system.”
Margaret went still.
Jonathan said quickly, “She takes medication.”
The doctor looked at him.
“Not at that level.”
I felt the world sharpen.
Jonathan’s eyes moved to mine.
A warning.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
A little girl whispered, “Clara?”
My heart stopped.
“Lily?”
She was crying quietly.
“Mommy’s room is locked. Grandma said I have to drink tea.”
The hospital hallway tilted beneath me.
“Where are you?”
“In the closet.”
Jonathan stared at me.
He knew.
Somehow, he knew.
I turned away from him and lowered my voice.
“Listen to me, Lily. Do not drink anything. Stay hidden.”
Margaret took one step toward me.
Jonathan took another.
Then Daniel’s voice came through the phone, breathless and furious.
“Clara, I’m at the gate. They won’t let me in.”
Lily whimpered.
Footsteps sounded through her side of the call.
Then Margaret smiled.
Cold.
May you like
Perfect.
“She found the phone,” she said.
