He made sure I was isolated, exhausted, traumatized by the time she passed. Made sure I was vulnerable enough to break when he had me committed.
"You're a monster," I breathe.
"I'm a businessman," he corrects. "And right now, you're a liability that needs to be resolved."
"All because of money?" The pieces click into place with sickening clarity.
"I've been managing the family fortune beautifully for years, but being a guardian is so limiting. So many restrictions, so much bureaucratic oversight." He examines his manicured nails. "But inheriting as the sole surviving family member? That's much more straightforward. Much more profitable."
I turn to stare at Dr. Harrison and Nurse Wells, these people who took oaths to heal, to protect the vulnerable. "You're hearing this. You know what he's planning. How can you just sit there?"
Dr. Harrison's shoulders tense slightly, but he doesn't turn around. His knuckles are white on the steering wheel. Nurse Wells glances at me in the rearview mirror, her expression carefully neutral but her eyes showing the strain.
"It's just a job," she says finally, but her voice wavers. "We don't ask questions about... family matters."
"He's talking about murder!"
"He's talking about a lot of things," Dr. Harrison says, his voice strained like a guitar string about to snap. "People say all sorts of things when they're emotional. Under stress."
"They know I could make their lives very difficult," Uncle Richard adds conversationally. "Medical licenses revoked, criminal charges filed, families destroyed. Or I can make them very comfortable. Gambling debts? Puff… gone! "
The full scope of his plan hits me. He's not just going to kill me; he's going to make it look like suicide or an accident. The perfect crime, committed by a man with enough money and connections to make evidence disappear like morning mist.
"You think I wanted this?" His voice takes on a wheedling, almost plaintive tone that makes my skin crawl. "No one understands what it's like to work your whole life building something, only to watch some brat inherit everything you've sweated for."
"You didn't build anything," I say, and for the first time in hours, my voice is steady. Strong. "My family built it. You're just a parasite feeding off their corpses."
Uncle Richard's face darkens like a storm cloud over the Rockies. "You ungrateful little—"
That's when the world explodes.
The impact comes from the passenger side, metal screaming against metal like the death cry of some massive beast. The SUV lurches sideways, tires shrieking against asphalt.
We hit the guardrail doing sixty, the barrier designed to keep vehicles from plummeting into the ravine below. For a split second, I think it might hold.
It doesn't.
The world flips sideways, then upside down, then sideways again. My body slams against the door, the ceiling, the seat, each impact driving the air from my lungs. Glass explodes in a shower of crystalline rain. The screech of twisting metal drowns out everything else. My screams, uncle Richard's curses, the terrible silence from the front seat.
We roll once, twice, three times down the rocky slope before slamming to a stop against a cluster of granite boulders with a sound like the end of the world.
Then everything goes quiet except for the hiss of escaping steam and the distant cry of a red-tailed hawk circling overhead.
I'm hanging upside down, held in place by my seatbelt, blood trickling down my forehead and into my hair. The SUV is on its roof, windows spider-webbed but miraculously not completely shattered.
My ears are ringing, my vision blurred, but I'm alive.
Dr. Harrison and Nurse Wells aren't moving. Blood pools beneath their heads where they hang motionless in the front seats.
Uncle Richard groans beside me, alive but dazed. Blood streams from a gash on his forehead, and his expensive suit is torn and stained with dirt and gore. His manicured hands fumble weakly at his seatbelt.
Before I process the situation fully, the passenger door is wrenched open with a screech of protesting metal. Hands reach in, rough and urgent, grabbing uncle Richard and dragging him from the wreckage like a sack of grain.
"About fucking time I found you," a rough voice snarls.
I know that voice. My blood turns to ice water.
Roy Cutter.
