“She is still critical, but we controlled the internal bleeding.
The next twenty-four hours are important.”
I covered my mouth with both hands.
My father bowed his head.
Officer Daniels looked toward the floor.
Grant said, “That’s good,” in the same tone he used when an earnings report met expectations.
The surgeon’s gaze settled on him.
“Your daughter will be transferred to pediatric intensive care.
One parent may see her when the team is ready.”
Grant straightened.
“I’m her father.”
The surgeon looked at me.
I thought of the unanswered calls and the party music playing behind Grant’s voice while Lily was in surgery.
“I’ll go,” I said.
Grant opened his mouth, but Officer Daniels’s phone rang before he could speak.
The officer listened for less than a minute.
When he ended the call, his expression had hardened.
A traffic camera had captured the collision.
The video showed the SUV moving behind us through two lanes of traffic.
When I signaled toward the hospital exit, Brooke accelerated and struck the rear quarter panel of my car at an angle investigators described as consistent with a deliberate spin maneuver.
She then drove away.
Grant shook his head.
“Brooke would never do that.”
“She called our house twelve times,” I said.
“Three times Lily answered.”
“You’re twisting everything because you’re jealous.”
The old version of me might have flinched at that word.
Jealous.
As though the problem were another woman’s dress rather than my daughter’s blood on a rain-soaked road.
Officer Daniels asked Grant when he had last spoken to Brooke before the collision.
“At dinner.”
“The dinner began at eight fifteen.
The collision occurred at seven forty-eight.”
Grant’s lips parted.
“She was preparing for dinner.”
“Where?”
“I don’t keep track of every minute of another adult’s life.”
Arthur slid a phone record from the folder.
Brooke had called Grant at 7:51 p.m., three minutes after the crash.
The call lasted four minutes and twelve seconds.
Grant had then called Montgomery Global’s head of corporate security.
At 8:12 p.m., someone using Grant’s credentials requested the deletion of Fleet Unit Seventeen’s history.
“What did Brooke tell you?” Officer Daniels asked.
Grant’s composure cracked for the first time.
“This is absurd.
I want my attorney.”
The woman standing beside my father lifted her briefcase.
Mara Chen had served as Montgomery Global’s outside governance counsel for nine years.
Grant had ignored her advice often enough to forget that she represented the corporation, not him personally.
“I am counsel to Montgomery Global,” Mara said.
“I cannot represent you in a personal criminal matter.”
Grant turned toward her.
“I hired you.”
“The board retained my firm.”
She handed him an envelope.
