Chapter 2 - The Woman on the Ridge
I knew the voice before I saw her face.
Laura Bennett.
Evan’s mother.
My husband Mark’s former wife.
For years, Laura and I had managed a cold but mostly civil relationship.
Birthday pickups.
School schedules.
Medical appointments.
Graduation planning.
We did not like each other.
We rarely needed to.
Mark had been dead ten months.
Since then, Laura had become more aggressive.
About Evan.
About Mark’s estate.
About the cabin.
But murder?
My brain could not place her inside that word.
Not yet.
Hank pressed a hand lightly against my shoulder.
“Stay down.”
Laura called again.
“Evan.”
No answer.
She walked closer to the edge.
I could hear gravel beneath her shoes.
Then:
“Where is he?”
Hank stood.
“You looking for the kid?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“He left.”
“Where?”
“Do not know.”
Laura moved nearer.
“What happened?”
“Car went through the rail.”
“My son was inside.”
“Looks like he got thrown clear.”
Another lie.
Hank delivered it easily.
Laura asked:
“And Anna?”
Hank looked down at me.
“She is not responding.”
The silence lasted too long.
“What does that mean?”
“Means I cannot get a response.”
“Is she dead?”
Not Anna.
Not my daughter in law.
Not is she breathing.
Is she dead.
Hank looked toward her.
“Who are you?”
“Family.”
“Then stay on the road. Slope is unstable.”
“I can help.”
“No.”
Her voice hardened.
“I said I can help.”
“And I said stay there.”
A vehicle door opened farther up the ridge.
Another person?
Hank’s eyes flicked toward the sound.
Laura lowered her voice.
“Did she say anything?”
My skin went cold.
“Before she stopped responding.”
Hank scratched his beard.
“She said brakes.”
Silence.
Then Laura:
“What about them?”
“Said they failed.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
A lie again.
Laura exhaled.
“Her phone?”
“What?”
“Did you find her phone?”
“No.”
My phone sat inside my coat pocket beneath the seat belt.
Laura wanted it.
Why?
Messages?
Banking?
Estate files?
Or evidence?
Hank slowly crouched again.
He pretended to examine my chest.
His mouth came close to my ear.
“She is scared of your phone.”
I whispered:
“Mark’s lawyer emailed me yesterday.”
“About what?”
“The cabin.”
Hank nodded once.
Above us, Laura said:
“I need to come down.”
Hank stood abruptly.
“Ambulance is three minutes away.”
That changed her.
I heard her step backward.
Then another male voice.
Too far away to recognize.
“Laura.”
She answered quickly:
“We need to go.”
My eyes opened.
Hank pushed my shoulder gently.
“Not yet.”
Laura called down:
“If Evan comes back, tell him I went home.”
“Sure.”
Vehicle doors slammed.
One engine started.
Then another.
Hank waited until both sounds disappeared.
Only then did he pull out his phone.
“Two vehicles.”
“You saw both?”
“One gray SUV. One black Range Rover.”
“Laura drives gray.”
“Then the other one belongs to whoever she did not want me seeing.”
Sirens approached.
The sound was distant.
Beautiful.
I started crying.
Not loudly.
I did not have enough air.
Hank looked at me.
“You stay with me.”
“My leg.”
“I know.”
“Evan tried to kill me.”
Hank did not soften the truth.
“Yes.”
“And Laura.”
“Maybe.”
“She asked if I was dead.”
“That is not proof she cut anything.”
I looked at him.
He was right.
I hated him for being right.
Facts first.
Emergency crews reached us.
Firefighters stabilized the car.
Paramedics fitted a collar around my neck.
My left leg was pinned badly enough that they had to cut part of the dashboard away.
I screamed through almost all of it.
Hank stayed until they carried me uphill.
At the top, I saw the guardrail.
A clean black scrape ran across the metal.
My Subaru lay thirty feet below.
On the shoulder stood a deputy.
Beside him stood Evan.
He had returned.
I almost stopped breathing.
He wore a blanket around his shoulders.
He looked pale now.
Perfectly believable.
He saw me alive.
His expression changed.
Only for a second.
Then he ran forward.
“Anna.”
The deputy caught his arm.
“Let the medics work.”
Evan started crying.
Actual tears.
“I thought you were dead.”
I stared at him from the stretcher.
He had photographed me trapped inside the wreck.
He had asked a stranger to make sure I stayed dead.
Now he was crying for witnesses.
I said nothing.
Hank stood behind the ambulance.
Our eyes met.
He understood.
The deputy leaned close.
“Ms. Bennett, can you tell me what happened?”
I looked at Evan.
Then Laura’s warning echoed inside my mind.
Her phone?
Did you find her phone?
I made a decision.
“I do not remember.”
Evan’s shoulders dropped slightly.
Relief.
Good.
Let him have it.
At the hospital, trauma doctors found three fractured ribs, a dislocated hip, deep cuts, and a compression fracture in my lower spine.
Pain medication blurred hours.
A detective named Maya Collins arrived after midnight.
Hank had insisted the crash might involve tampering.
He gave police the brake line segment.
Maya sat beside my bed.
“Do you remember more than you told the deputy?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want Evan removed before we speak?”
“Yes.”
He had been sitting outside the room with Laura.
My hospital contact list still identified him as my dependent.
Laura had told nurses she was his legal mother and needed to stay nearby.
Maya closed the door.
I told her everything.
The cut belt.
The box cutter.
The photographs.
The cabin.
Evan’s words.
Laura on the ridge.
The black Range Rover.
Maya took notes without interrupting.
When I finished, she asked:
“What note did Evan mention?”
“I do not know.”
Police searched the wreck under warrant.
At 3:14 in the morning, Maya returned carrying a clear evidence sleeve.
Inside was one folded sheet of paper.
My stationery.
My handwriting.
At least it looked like mine.
The first sentence read:
I cannot keep living with what I did to Evan.
The second:
The cabin should always have belonged to him and his mother.
The final line made my blood turn cold.
If the mountain takes me, maybe that is what I deserve.
May you like
I had never written a single word of it.
Continue to the next part: Someone planted a note inside Anna’s wreck to make the crash look intentional, and the handwriting came from a source inside her own home.
