Chapter 2 - Ashley Came Back Alone
It was Ashley.
She crouched behind me.
Her hands shook harder than mine.
“Get me out.”
“I can’t.”
“What?”
“If they see the dirt moved—”
“Your family buried me.”
“I know.”
“Then dig.”
Her face crumpled.
“Sarah, listen.”
I hated her for whispering.
Hated her for looking frightened when I was the one trapped in the ground.
“That remote is Dad’s.”
“I know.”
“The red button is tied to the estate panic system.”
I stared at her.
“Press it.”
She shook her head.
“It sends an alarm to the security company.”
“Good.”
“And opens an incident with an outside monitoring center.”
Even better.
“Press it.”
“Dad will know.”
“Ashley.”
She looked at my stomach.
Something changed.
She reached down, pushed the remote the final inch into my hand, then stood.
“I never came back here.”
“What?”
Before I could answer, she walked away.
I pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
No siren.
No flashing lights.
I pressed again.
Still nothing.
Then, somewhere near the main house, a faint electronic chirp sounded.
I waited.
Thirty seconds.
A minute.
Footsteps again.
This time heavier.
I thought Robert had returned.
Instead a man in a navy security jacket appeared at the garden gate.
He stopped.
Stared.
Then ran toward me.
Within minutes there were more voices.
A shovel.
Hands carefully clearing soil.
Somebody calling 911.
I remember saying:
“I’m pregnant.”
Again.
And again.
As if everyone could somehow forget.
The ambulance took me to a hospital outside Philadelphia.
My baby’s heartbeat remained steady.
That became the only sentence I heard clearly for the next hour.
The baby’s heartbeat is steady.
Doctors photographed bruising.
Cleaned the cut on my forehead.
Checked my breathing.
Police arrived.
I told them everything.
The accusation.
The dirt.
Michael helping.
Robert taking my phone.
Ashley standing there.
The detective asked:
“Why did they believe the child wasn’t your husband’s?”
“I don’t know.”
That was not entirely true.
There had been a document.
Linda had waved it in my face before they dragged me outside.
A laboratory report.
My name.
Michael’s name.
A number beside the words:
Probability of Paternity: 0.00%.
I told the detective that.
He asked:
“Did you take a paternity test?”
“No.”
He stopped writing.
“You’re sure?”
“I would remember.”
Then he asked:
“Did anyone take blood from you recently?”
I almost said no.
Instead I remembered my prenatal appointment twelve days earlier.
Three tubes.
May you like
Routine genetic screening.
And for the first time, the piece of paper Linda showed me became more frightening than the hole they put me in.
