My Sister Faked the Fall. This Time, I Filmed It. novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: What the Staircase Saw

Kylie slips on the hallway camera, Brynn lies, Palmer threatens, and Willa points to the camera over the stairs.

The dispatcher said help was on the way, and I hung up.

Nobody in my hallway spoke.

On the floor, my sister had stopped sobbing.

She looked at my mother, then at Palmer, then back at my mother.

They were small, fast, frightened looks, and a hurt woman does not make them.

"Why would you do that?" Palmer hissed at me. "A police report is permanent. It's public. Your name and face will be on every news site in the state."

"Why would I hide it?"

I lowered myself into the armchair by the stairs and rested both hands on my belly.

"While we wait, let's talk. Kylie, where was I standing when I pushed you?"

Her lips shook. "At the top. On the landing."

"What was I holding?"

"Nothing. You grabbed my shoulders."

"I came down holding Gran's quilt."

"You must have dropped it first."

"Where did it land?"

She hesitated. "I don't know. I was falling, Willa. I wasn't taking notes."

A few guests murmured. Poor thing, look at her.

"Of course," I said gently. "One more. Forty people were in the next room. Why didn't any of them hear us fighting?"

"Because you didn't say a word. You just shoved me from behind, and you planned it, too. You made sure the hallway camera has been unplugged since Tuesday so nobody could ever prove it."

She stopped.

Her hand covered her mouth.

I let the silence run until everyone had heard what she had said.

"Interesting," I said. "That camera faces my bedroom door. You don't live here, Kylie. How did you know it's been unplugged since Tuesday?"

"Mom told me. Everyone knows. I mean, I just assumed..."

"Mom?" I turned my head. "Did you tell her that?"

My mother opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

Palmer stepped between us.

"That's enough. She's bleeding on the floor and you're cross-examining her. What is wrong with you?"

Sirens turned onto our street.

Red and blue light slid across the front windows, and two paramedics came in first, then two police officers.

The older officer wore sergeant's stripes.

She looked at the blood, the balloons, the crying woman and the pregnant one sitting in an armchair, and her face stayed exactly as it was.

The paramedics knelt by my sister.

"Ma'am, we need to get you to the hospital now."

"Not yet!" She caught the sergeant's sleeve. "Please, you have to hear me first. My own sister pushed me. Her family has money. They'll make it disappear."

"I saw it."

A new voice carried over the crowd.

Brynn Cecil stepped out from the guests with her chin high, her phone pressed to her chest.

She had been my sister's best friend since high school, and she walked forward.

"I was coming back from the downstairs bathroom. I looked up and I saw Willa put both hands on her back and push."

The room erupted.

"Her own sister."

"And she's pregnant herself."

"How could she?"

"Brynn," I said. "Which bathroom?"

"The downstairs one."

"The one with the door that faces the kitchen?"

She blinked. "Yes. And then I looked up."

"Thank you," I said. "I just wanted to hear it twice."

The sergeant opened her notebook. "Ma'am, I'll take your statement now."

Palmer crouched beside my chair, the picture of a loyal husband comforting his wife.

His mouth was against my ear.

"Last chance. There's a witness now. Sign the papers, or I tell them you've been jealous of Kylie for months. I tell them you've been unstable this whole pregnancy. I tell them I was afraid of you."

His voice was warm and tender.

In my last life, I was married to that voice for years, and I never once heard the blade in it.

I heard it now.

"Palmer," I whispered back. "Do you remember the electrician who came last Wednesday?"

He frowned. "What about him?"

"You thought he was here to fix the smoke detectors."

I raised my hand and pointed above the staircase, past the landing, to the white disc on the ceiling.

A tiny red light was blinking inside it.

All the color left his face.

Behind him, my mother's eyes went to the light, then to the front door, and she took one step back.

"That is illegal," she said, too quickly. "You can't film people in a private home without telling them."

"It's my home, Mom."

"Palmer," she said. "Tell her."

He said nothing.

His hands had begun to shake.

Finbar was standing at the edge of the crowd.

His camera had not moved from the stairs once.

"Sergeant," I said loudly, so every guest could hear me. "Before you take anyone's statement, you'll want to see what my staircase saw."

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