Page 87

“Please, Jacob, I’m sorry, please, please don’t hurt me.”

Thick tears cascaded down my cheeks as I attempted to scoot to the edge of the bed to get as far away from him as possible. My heart beat furiously in my throat, my entire body trembling in alarm.

Hurt washed over Jacob’s face as he stood, taking a step back from the bed and holding his hands up in surrender. “Charlotte, what’s going on? You’re scaring me.”

Scaring him? If anyone should have been scared, it was me. And I was. I was petrified of what Jacob was capable of doing. He’d admitted to killing Amy; he could kill me at any time.

“You killed her.” The words rolled off my tongue before I could stop them as panic and trepidation took hold. “You…killed her, and you’ll do the same to me.”

Jacob lowered his hands, his features contorting into confusion. “Angel, what are you talking about? Killed who?”

Before I could answer, the door to the room opened, and a man stepped in wearing a white medical coat. At seeing me awake, a warm smile pulled at his mouth. “Ah, Mrs. Du Pont, you’re awake.” He glanced between Jacob and me as his smile faltered. “Is everything okay?”

“No,” I cried, relief coursing through my veins at his arrival. “I need you to call the police.”

“The police?” His brows furrowed as he looked at Jacob again.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” Jacob replied, running a hand through his hair. “She just woke up and started begging me not to hurt her, and that I killed someone.”

The doctor’s shoulders seemed to slump as he leisurely crossed to the end of my bed and picked up a clipboard. “This can happen with a traumatic head injury. Hallucinations, Confusion.”

I shook my head as I stared at him, not comprehending why he wasn’t listening to me. Why wasn’t he calling the police?

Moving to the machine by my side that was now beeping faster, and in time with my racing heart, he scanned the display. “Mrs. Du Pont, my name is Dr. Emery. You suffered a severe concussion when you fell down the stairs. I need you to take some deep breaths; your heart rate is very high.”

“No, no, I didn’t fall. Wallace pushed me!“ I snatched my hand away as the doctor reached for it. “Wallace pushed me down the stairs because I shot Jacob!”

Jacob took a step toward the bed. “Angel, what are you talking about? You didn’t shoot me.”

“Liar!” I roared, the image of me squeezing the trigger lodged firmly in my head.

Dr. Emery cleared his throat. “Mr. Du Pont, I’m going to need you to step outside for a moment; I don’t think your presence is helping your wife.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jacob protested, his eyes filling with sadness and a hint of defiance.

“Please, Jacob. I don’t want you near me,“ I sobbed, my voice breaking.

Jacob reared back as if I’d just slapped him. Tears filled his eyes, and for a second, a mere second, I wanted to take back my words and ask him to hold me.

He swallowed several times before muttering, “I’ll be outside.”

Without looking my way, he left the room, his shoulders hunched as if he was hauling the weight of the world on them.

Once the door closed behind him, my entire body sagged with relief, yet underneath the fear, something else lingered. Something I didn’t want to acknowledge.

“Can you take a few deep breaths for me now?” Dr. Emery said, hovering by my side and watching me carefully. Doing as instructed, my speeding heart began to slow after nearly a minute. Dr Emery gave me a kind smile. “That’s better. How do you feel?”

“I’m okay.” My answer was a lie; I was anything but okay.

Dr. Emery nodded as if he knew I was lying. “Do you remember what happened? How you got here?”

I forced the words out past the lump in my throat. “I told you, I shot Jacob, and then Wallace drugged me and pushed me down the stairs.”

He didn’t reply immediately, thinking over his words. His lips pursed as he lowered to perch on the bed next to me, and when he addressed me, he spoke as if he was attempting to calm a wild animal. “May I call you Charlotte?” I bobbed my head. “When you fell-”

“When I was pushed.”

He tilted his head. “When you were pushed down the stairs, you hit your head very hard. You were knocked unconscious and have been unconscious for two days.” My jaw dropped open. Two days? “Now, from the scans we’ve taken of your head, I don’t believe there will be any long-term damage, but it is common for people to not remember what happened prior to sustaining a head injury. Or, in some cases, they might misremember what happened.”