Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN THE MOUNTAIN REFUSED TO TAKEThe storm intensified twenty minutes after Nathan left.
I was thirty-nine weeks pregnant when Nathan Cole pushed me off the edge of an icy mountain.
There was no argument immediately before it happened.
No warning.
Just his hands against my shoulders.
And one hard shove.
My boots disappeared from beneath me.
For a fraction of a second, I hung in the white Colorado sky with my mouth open and no sound coming out.
Then I fell.
I hit a shelf of frozen earth, rolled over it, struck something hard enough to steal my breath, and dropped again.
Branches tore at my face.
Ice sliced my palms.
My shoulder slammed against rock.
Then everything stopped.
I landed on a narrow ledge buried beneath snow.
Pain exploded through my body.
My first thought wasn't about Nathan.
It wasn't about dying.
It was about my baby.
“Eli.”
I pressed both hands against my stomach.
Nothing.
“Baby, please.”
Still nothing.
Terror became something physical inside me.
Above, wind screamed across the ridge.
I heard boots crunching through snow.
Nathan appeared at the top.
My husband of seven years.
The man who had painted our nursery pale blue.
The man who had kissed my stomach every night.
The man who had driven me into the mountains that morning because he said we deserved “one peaceful day before everything changed.”
He looked down.
Our eyes met.
“Nathan!”
I tried to move.
A bolt of agony tore through my hip.
“Help me!”
He didn't move.
I saw no panic on his face.
No horror.
No regret.
Just calculation.
Then another figure stepped beside him.
A woman.
Camel-colored coat.
Black gloves.
Long red hair whipping in the wind.
I knew her.
Rebecca Shaw.
Nathan's executive assistant.
The woman who had sent him messages after midnight.
The woman he'd told me was “basically family.”
Rebecca peered over the edge.
“Oh my God.”
Nathan grabbed her arm and pulled her backward.
“Don't get too close.”
I stared at them.
That was when I understood.
This wasn't an accident.
“Nathan…”
He crouched near the edge.
“We tried, Claire.”
The words barely carried through the wind.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
“What?”
“You were never supposed to land there.”
Rebecca grabbed his shoulder.
“She can hear you.”
Nathan didn't care.
His face had become something unfamiliar.
Cold.
Almost relieved.
“You made everything complicated,” he said.
I shook my head.
“Our baby…”
He looked directly at my stomach.
For one terrible second, I thought I saw hesitation.
Then it disappeared.
“The policy covers both deaths.”
My blood seemed to freeze before the rest of me did.
Three months earlier, Nathan had increased my life-insurance coverage.
He told me it was responsible planning before the baby's birth.
Ten million dollars.
I had teased him.
“What, are you planning to kill me?”
He'd laughed.
Now that laugh returned to me like a warning I'd been too trusting to understand.
Rebecca whispered something.
Nathan nodded.
Then he stood.
“Nathan!”
He turned away.
“NATHAN!”
He walked toward the trail.
I screamed until my throat burned.
“You can't leave your son!”
He stopped.
For one heartbeat, I believed I had reached whatever remained of the man I'd married.
Then he looked over his shoulder.
“You're right about one thing, Claire.”
Snow swirled between us.
“Everything changes today.”
And he disappeared.
My body started shaking.
I tried digging my fingers into the snow, searching for something solid.
The ledge was barely wider than my body.
Below me was nothing but rock, forest, and white emptiness.
I couldn't climb.
I couldn't stand.
My phone was gone.
Blood warmed the side of my face before turning cold.
Then the cramping started.
Deep.
Powerful.
Wrong.
“No.”
I curled protectively around my stomach.
“Not here.”
Another contraction rolled through me.
I screamed.
The wind swallowed it.
My vision blurred.
I thought of the nursery waiting at home.
The tiny socks folded in the dresser.
The wooden airplane hanging above the crib.
The name ELI painted across the wall.
I began crying.
Not because Nathan had betrayed me.
There wasn't enough room inside me for that grief yet.
I cried because my son might never see the room I'd built for him.
“I'm sorry,” I whispered.
Then something pressed hard against my palm.
A kick.
I froze.
Another kick.
Stronger.
My baby was alive.
A laugh broke through my sobbing.
“There you are.”
Another contraction came.
This one stole the air from my lungs.
The ledge beneath my legs cracked.
A chunk of ice disappeared into the canyon.
I stared down.
“No, no, no.”
My hands searched frantically for anything to hold.
My fingers closed around an exposed root.
My entire body was trembling now.
Cold.
Pain.
Fear.
But beneath both hands, Eli moved again.
I shut my eyes.
“You're fighting?”
Kick.
I breathed through the pain.
“Then Mommy fights too.”
Far above, an engine started.
Nathan's SUV.
Getting farther away.
Leaving us behind.
He thought he had killed his wife and child.
He thought the mountain would bury his secret.
He thought he'd already won.
I tightened my grip around that frozen root and made a promise to the little boy still kicking beneath my heart.
“We are getting off this mountain.”
I didn't know how.
I didn't know whether I had ten minutes left or ten hours.
But I knew something Nathan didn't.
He had pushed one person off that cliff.
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He had left two survivors behind.
And neither of us was ready to die.
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