Chapter 2 - PRESERVE EVERYTHING
The ambulance doors slammed shut.
Wyatt held my hand.
“Don’t let go,” I whispered.
“I won’t.”
Then darkness swallowed everything.
I woke beneath fluorescent hospital lights.
My face was wrapped in bandages.
For several seconds, I didn’t remember why.
Then I tried opening my left eye.
Panic returned immediately.
“My eye.”
Wyatt stood beside the bed.
His shirt still carried traces of what had happened.
His eyes were red.
“I’m here.”
“Can I see?”
“The doctors repaired fractures around your cheekbone and eye socket.”
He squeezed my hand.
“They think your vision has a very good chance of recovering.”
I started crying.
“I’m scared.”
“I know.”
A police officer entered soon afterward.
Chief Donald Briggs.
He pulled a chair beside my bed.
“I need to ask you some questions.”
I told him what happened.
But I didn’t stop with the brick.
I told him about growing up as Gregory Davis’s first daughter when the only thing he openly wanted was a son.
About Melanie becoming the favorite almost from the moment she learned how to smile on command.
About birthdays when she received expensive gifts while I was told I should appreciate “being part of the family.”
About the wooden crib my grandfather had carved for me.
Dad destroyed it during one of his rages.
I had barely been old enough to remember.
Then I told Chief Briggs how everything changed when Wyatt became wealthy.
Family dinners suddenly appeared every weekend.
Melanie began complimenting him constantly.
Then came the accidental meetings.
The messages.
The pressure.
“She told my parents I manipulated him,” I said.
Chief Briggs didn’t interrupt.
When I finished, I asked one thing.
“Please preserve everything.”
“The brick?”
“Everything. My clothes. Wyatt’s phone. Security videos. Messages.”
His expression sharpened.
“You think this was planned?”
“I don’t know.”
That was true.
But lying in that bed, I understood something I had ignored for years.
My family’s cruelty had patterns.
And patterns left evidence.
Chief Briggs leaned forward.
“Ms. Davis, we already have six witnesses.”
I stared at him.
“Six?”
“The electrician. A neighbor. Two people in a passing vehicle. Another resident.”
He paused.
“And somebody who heard your family discussing Wyatt before you arrived.”
My heart began pounding.
“We also recovered several security-camera recordings.”
“Did they see Dad hit me?”
“Yes.”
Then his expression changed.
“But that isn’t the most troubling part.”
May you like
“What is?”
“The cameras caught what they were doing before you got there.”
