Chapter 10 - Learning to Walk AgainHaley left the hospital eleven days after the accident.
Not because it was funny.
Because the alternative was believing his best friend had tampered with a chandelier hanging above children.
“That’s impossible.”
Detective Ortiz did not react.
“Mr. Vane had authorized access to the ballroom during setup.”
“He was foundation counsel.”
“Yes.”
“He could have touched tools for a hundred reasons.”
“The wrench belongs to the hotel engineering department.”
Dylan stopped laughing.
I watched the color drain from his face.
“Why would Marcus do that?”
“That’s what we’re investigating.”
Ortiz looked at me.
“We also recovered deleted security footage.”
My stomach tightened.
“What footage?”
“Mr. Vane entered a maintenance corridor above the ballroom approximately forty minutes before the collapse.”
Dylan sat down.
“No.”
“I understand this is difficult.”
“You don’t understand.”
His voice cracked.
“Marcus was my best man.”
The detective remained calm.
“People are complicated.”
That sentence felt like the theme of my life.
Ortiz continued.
“We have not arrested him. We’re still determining whether he had a legitimate reason to be there.”
“What would the motive be?” I asked.
“We don’t know.”
I thought about the media.
The edited footage.
The immediate hero narrative.
Marcus had benefited professionally from Dylan’s publicity.
But nobody could have predicted Dylan would save Ryan.
Unless the intended target wasn’t a child.
“Where was Dylan supposed to sit?”
Ortiz looked at me.
“Excuse me?”
“The chandelier. Where was Dylan’s assigned seat?”
She checked her notes.
“At table twelve.”
“Where was that?”
Dylan answered.
“Under the chandelier.”
My heart stopped.
The children’s table had been moved.
I remembered.
Originally, the ballroom plan placed several adult tables beneath the fixture.
But just before dinner, hotel staff rearranged seating because a pipe leak affected one corner.
The children’s table was moved into that area.
“Who approved the new layout?” Ortiz asked.
Dylan’s eyes widened.
“Marcus.”
The detective wrote something down.
By afternoon, police executed a search warrant at Mercer & Vane.
News vans appeared outside the office.
Marcus disappeared.
His phone went offline.
His home was empty.
By evening, his face was on every local station.
I sat beside Haley watching cartoons while the world outside our room exploded.
Dylan paced.
“Why would he want me dead?”
Rebecca, who had become an almost permanent presence, answered.
“Money?”
“No.”
“Firm control?”
“We’re equal partners.”
“If you died?”
“My shares would go to my estate.”
“Could Marcus buy them?”
Dylan stopped.
“Yes.”
“For how much?”
“Valuation formula.”
“Favorable?”
He sat down slowly.
“Very.”
Rebecca stared at him.
“How favorable?”
“If I died, Marcus could acquire my partnership interest at book value.”
“And market value?”
Dylan rubbed his face.
“Probably four times higher.”
There it was.
Money again.
Not love.
Not obsession.
Not Sierra.
Greed.
But something still bothered me.
“Why now?”
Nobody answered.
I looked at Dylan.
“What happened recently at the firm?”
He shook his head.
“Nothing.”
“Think.”
He stared at the floor.
Then his expression shifted.
“The Westbridge case.”
Rebecca leaned forward.
“What?”
“One of our biggest clients.”
“What about them?”
“I found accounting irregularities.”
“How big?”
“Potentially hundreds of millions.”
“And Marcus?”
“He brought them to the firm.”
“Did you confront him?”
“Two weeks ago.”
My skin went cold.
“What did he say?”
“That I was overreacting.”
“And you?”
“I said I was withdrawing us as counsel and notifying outside auditors.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
“Oh God.”
Dylan looked sick.
“You think Marcus was involved.”
“I think police are going to ask the same question.”
At 10 p.m., Detective Ortiz called.
They found Marcus.
He had checked into a motel in Indiana under his middle name.
He was arrested without incident.
The next morning, the story broke nationally.
The alleged target had been Dylan.
The chandelier had been loosened hours before the gala.
Investigators believed the seating rearrangement accidentally placed children beneath it.
Marcus was accused of attempted murder, reckless endangerment, evidence tampering, and financial crimes tied to Westbridge.
My first emotion was relief.
Haley had not been targeted.
Ryan had not been targeted.
Sierra had not tried to force Dylan to choose.
Then came rage.
One man’s greed had nearly killed my daughter.
And afterward, he had turned her suffering into public relations.
Dylan sat beside the window.
“I trusted him.”
I almost said something cruel.
Something about irony.
But I stopped.
Trust betrayed is still pain, even when it happens to someone who betrayed you.
“I know.”
He looked at me.
That was the first kindness I had offered him in days.
His eyes filled.
“Emma.”
“Don’t.”
“I wasn’t going to ask for anything.”
“Good.”
“I was going to say thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not enjoying this.”
I looked toward Haley.
“I don’t want you destroyed.”
He seemed surprised.
“I want you accountable.”
There is a difference.
He nodded.
That afternoon, Sierra came to the hospital.
I almost refused to see her.
Then I noticed Ryan beside her.
He carried a drawing.
Haley saw him through the doorway.
“Ryan!”
Her face brightened.
Children.
Again, somehow wiser than adults.
Ryan walked in shyly.
“I made you this.”
He handed her a picture of two stick figures holding hands beneath a giant yellow sun.
One figure had brown hair.
The other had yellow.
At the top he had written, in uneven letters:
ME + HALEY
Haley smiled.
“Daddy says you’re my brother.”
Ryan looked at Dylan.
Dylan was standing near the door.
“Yeah.”
“Cool.”
That was it.
Six years of secrets reduced to one word.
Cool.
Haley moved carefully.
“Want to see my cast?”
“Yes.”
Ryan examined the signatures.
“I can sign.”
“Okay.”
Sierra and I stood in the hall while they talked.
For a long time, neither of us spoke.
Then she said, “I’m sorry.”
“For which part?”
“All of it.”
I looked at her.
She seemed smaller than she had at the gala.
Less like a rival.
More like another person who had made selfish decisions and watched children pay for them.
“You wanted him to leave me.”
“Yes.”
“Do you still?”
She looked through the glass.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I finally saw him.”
I frowned.
“When?”
“The chandelier.”
I expected her to say something cruel.
Instead:
“He saved Ryan because of guilt.”
I stared.
“I knew it the second he grabbed him.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Her voice broke.
“I spent years telling myself that if Dylan ever had to choose, he would choose our son.”
The words hurt.
“But when he did, it didn’t feel like love. It felt like panic.”
I said nothing.
“He looked at Haley afterward like he had destroyed his own life.”
“He almost destroyed hers.”
“I know.”
Sierra wiped her eyes.
“I used Ryan.”
That admission surprised me.
“I told myself I was fighting for him to have a father. But sometimes I was fighting because I wanted to win.”
“Against me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She gave a sad smile.
“Because you got the version of Dylan I thought was supposed to be mine.”
I looked through the glass.
Dylan was helping Haley show Ryan how to use the television remote.
“You didn’t know the version I had.”
“No.”
“And I didn’t know yours.”
She nodded.
For the first time, we understood each other.
Not friends.
Never that.
But no longer enemies.
Before leaving, Sierra said, “I’m moving.”
“To California?”
“No.”
“Where?”
“Evanston. Ryan’s school is here.”
“And the house?”
“I’m selling it.”
“Why?”
“It was built on lies.”
I almost laughed.
“Apparently we own matching real estate.”
She smiled sadly.
Then her expression grew serious.
“Emma.”
“What?”
“There’s something you should know about Dylan.”
I braced myself.
She shook her head.
“Not another betrayal.”
“What then?”
“The California house.”
“Yes?”
“He canceled the offer before the gala.”
I frowned.
“When?”
“Two days before.”
“Why?”
“He told me he wasn’t leaving you.”
My heart shifted.
“He said after he told you about Ryan, he would accept whatever you decided. But he wasn’t going to abandon Haley.”
I looked through the glass at him.
Sierra continued.
“I was angry. That’s why I confronted him.”
“So he didn’t promise to leave?”
“He made me think he might for months.”
“That’s enough.”
“Yes.”
“But in the end?”
“In the end, he chose your marriage.”
I almost laughed at the cruelty of the timing.
May you like
Two days later, the chandelier fell.
And he chose something else.
