Chapter 17 - The Empty Wheelchair
The wheelchair struck the landing and tipped over.
Mara stopped breathing.
“Teresa!”
June stirred against her chest.
Mara forced herself not to run back up.
That instinct tore her in half.
Teresa had saved her twice.
But June was in her arms.
A choice.
Mara kept going down.
She hated herself for it with every step.
Later, she would understand it was the right choice.
In that moment, it felt like betrayal.
At the ground floor, Hale met her with two officers.
“Where’s Teresa?”
Mara could not answer at first.
He saw her face and ran upstairs.
Ten minutes later, Evelyn was in custody.
Teresa was alive.
The gunshot had hit the wheelchair’s backrest. Teresa had thrown herself into a supply closet before Evelyn fired.
When Hale told Mara, her knees gave out.
She sat on the floor and laughed until it turned into crying.
June slept through all of it.
Evelyn was charged with attempted murder, murder of Dr. Cole, arson, conspiracy, and a list of offenses long enough to fill a page.
Daniel agreed to testify against her.
Then he tried to bargain for visitation with June.
Mara read the request twice.
“Is he serious?”
Her attorney, Lena Ortiz, nodded. “Very.”
“No.”
“We’ll oppose it.”
“No, I mean—how does a person ask that?”
Lena closed the file. “People can hold two beliefs that should not fit together. He can believe he loves June and still be the man who tried to prevent her birth.”
Mara looked through the glass at her daughter.
“That’s not love.”
“No.”
The next complication came from Samuel.
He wanted immunity in exchange for the company ledgers.
Federal prosecutors considered it.
Mara was furious.
“He watched us fall.”
Lena said, “And he can put Evelyn and half the board in prison.”
“So he walks?”
“Maybe.”
Mara hated the word now.
Justice, she learned, was not a clean staircase. It was a crowded hallway where people traded pieces of truth.
That evening, Teresa visited June.
Mara sat beside her.
“I left you upstairs,” Mara said.
Teresa looked at her.
“You carried your baby out.”
“I left you.”
“Yes.”
Mara’s eyes filled.
Teresa reached over and squeezed her hand.
“And I would have slapped you if you came back.”
Mara laughed through tears.
Then Teresa’s expression changed.
“What?” Mara asked.
“There is one more thing in the trust.”
Mara closed her eyes. “Of course there is.”
Teresa almost smiled.
“If June survives thirty days, the controlling shares transfer permanently.”
Mara stared at her.
June was nine days old.
May you like
Twenty-one days remained.
