He Chose Her, So I Faked My Death novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Over the Edge

A fall down marble steps, a husband who walks past her, a baby's heartbeat on the screen, and a car that goes off a cliff road at midnight with nobody in it.

Lydia ran down the steps in a rush of ivory silk.

"Preston, don't! Imogen, please, let me help you."

She reached for me with both hands.

Her heel hooked my ankle, and her palm shoved flat against my chest.

I went backward down three marble steps.

The pain opened low in my stomach, sharp and deep.

I curled around it before I could think.

Lydia cried out and dropped beside me, clutching her foot.

"Oh God, my ankle!"

Preston ran to her.

He stepped over my legs to get there.

He took her face in both hands and asked if she could stand.

I looked up at him through the blur in my eyes.

My hand was pressed to my belly.

"Preston," I said. "I'm pregnant."

He went still for one moment.

Then his jaw set.

"Not tonight," he said. "I won't be played by one more lie for attention."

He lifted Lydia into his arms and carried her out.

Two guards pulled me up by the elbows and walked me out a side door.

Nobody in that ballroom said a word.

In the back of the cab I felt something warm and wet.

A dark spot was spreading on the red dress, and nobody could see it but me.

At the emergency room the doctor put the cold gel on my stomach and turned the screen.

A tiny light was beating in the dark.

"Your baby is fine," she said. "You were lucky."

I watched that flicker until the tears cleared.

Then I took out the hidden phone.

"Move it up," I texted my brother. "Tomorrow night."

His answer came in under a minute.

"Are you sure? Saturday gives us time to do it right."

I typed: "He just hit me in front of four hundred people. I'm sure."

The next reply was a time and a place.

"Midnight. Mile marker 41, north of Carmel. A man named Jasper will find you. Do what he says."

I spent the day in a motel room with my phone off, my feet up and my hand on my stomach.

I did not cry again.

At eleven that night I drove my own car up the coast highway with the windows down.

The road was empty and black, with the ocean loud somewhere below.

At mile marker 41 there was a gravel turnout and a low guardrail with a gap cut in it.

A man stood in the gap in a dark jacket with the collar up.

He was tall, unshaven, and he did not smile.

"Imogen Radcliffe," he said.

It was the first time anyone had said that name aloud in five years.

"Jasper Holt," he said. "I work for your brother."

"What happens now?"

"Now you give me your phone, your wallet and your wedding ring."

I gave him the phone and the wallet.

I held the ring a second longer.

Preston had slid it onto my finger at the courthouse without a word about love.

I dropped it in his palm.

Jasper opened a black medical bag and took out a needle and a vial.

"It has to be your blood on the seat," he said. "Roll up your sleeve."

I rolled it up, and the scar on my forearm showed white under the dome light.

He looked at the scar for a moment and said nothing.

When the vial was full he pressed gauze to my arm.

"Torn dress in the back seat. Your handbag on the floor. Your shoes by the guardrail."

"My shoes?"

"A woman who walks off a cliff leaves her shoes."

I stepped out of my heels.

The gravel was cold through my stockings.

Jasper climbed into the driver's seat and fixed the wheel.

He took the car out of park, stepped out and let it roll.

It crept across the turnout and tipped through the gap.

For a second there was nothing.

Then I heard the crash, the long metal tear of it going down the rocks, and a splash.

My whole body went rigid.

I had planned it for three days and I was not ready.

"Breathe," Jasper said.

He had my elbow and he was already walking me to a dark SUV.

Headlights swung around the bend behind us.

A black sedan braked hard at the edge of the turnout.

The driver's door flew open.

I knew the shape of the man who got out.

"That's my husband," I whispered.

Preston ran to the broken guardrail and stood at the edge looking down.

Jasper pulled me behind the SUV and held a hand over my mouth.

I watched through the gap between the doors.

Preston did not scream my name.

He did not climb down.

He took out his phone, and I heard him say, very clearly, "Call the lawyer. Tell him it's done."

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