Chapter 2 - THE HOSPITAL BED AND THE WITNESSES
The sterile white lights of the emergency room flickered overhead, casting a harsh glare on the stainless-steel trays and the monitors pinging a steady, rhythmic heartbeat. My left eye was swollen shut, throbbing with a dull, sickening intensity that radiated down to my jaw. Every time I breathed, the metallic taste of copper filled my mouth.
Wyatt sat in a plastic chair beside my bed, his knuckles scraped and bruised from his struggle with my father in the rose bushes. His tailored shirt was stained with my bl0od, but he hadn't left my side for a single second. His jaw was clenched so tight the muscles twitched.
“The plastic surgeon is reviewing the CT scans now, Sadie,” Wyatt said, his voice raw and heavy with grief. “Your cheekbone is fractured in three places. They’re going to need to operate to insert titanium plates.”
I turned my head slowly, wincing as a sharp pain lanced through my neck. “Wyatt… my father meant to kill me. Or at least disfigure me enough so you wouldn't want me anymore.”
Before Wyatt could answer, the heavy double doors of the trauma bay swung open. Officer Thomas, a seasoned detective with silver-speckled hair and tired eyes, stepped inside. Behind him walked two uniforms.
“Ms. Davis? Mr. Campbell?” Officer Thomas asked, pulling a small leather notebook from his jacket pocket. “I’m Detective Thomas. The attending physician said you were conscious and ready to give a statement.”
Wyatt stood up, stepping protectively between the detective and my bed. “Before we say anything, Officer, I want you to know this wasn't an accident or a domestic dispute gone wrong. It was a premeditated assault. Her parents and her sister planned it to force me into marrying Melanie.”
The detective raised a calm, steady hand. “I’ve already spoken to the responding officers, Mr. Campbell. And more importantly, I’ve spoken to three independent witnesses who stopped when they saw the attack.”
My good eye widened. “Three witnesses?”
“More than that,” a familiar, gravelly voice echoed from the doorway.
We all turned. Leaning heavily on a wooden cane in the doorway was the elderly man I had seen behind the living room window right before the ambulance arrived. His face was weathered with deep wrinkles, and his eyes burned with fierce intensity.
“Arthur?” I whispered, my mind racing. The elderly man who lived across the street from my parents for forty years.
Arthur slowly walked into the room, nodding respectfully to the detective. “I’m Arthur Pendelton. I live at 412 Maple Street. And I’ve got security cameras facing right at Gregory Davis’s front porch. I captured the whole thing in high-definition color, audio included.”
Officer Thomas looked down at Arthur, then back at me, a slight smile touching the corner of his mouth. “Well, that saves us a lot of guesswork. But that’s not all, Ms. Davis. When our cruisers arrived at your parents' house to execute the arrest warrant, they didn't just find your mother and sister burning documents in the backyard fire pit.”
Wyatt crossed his arms. “What else did they find?”
“They found an old man who was terrified out of his mind,” Detective Thomas said, flipping a page in his notebook. “Mr. Arthur Pendelton wasn't the only one watching. There was a registered nurse who had been caring for your grandfather—your real grandfather, Arthur Vance—before he passed away last year. And she had a copy of a document your father and mother worked very hard to bury.”
I gripped the thin hospital blanket. “What document?”
Arthur stepped closer to the bed, resting his trembling hands on his cane. “The true will, Sadie. Not the forged one Gregory filed at the courthouse. The one that leaves every single square inch of the family estate, the trust funds, and the historical downtown commercial buildings to you. Not to Melanie. Not to your greedy parents. To you.”
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The pieces of the horrifying puzzle suddenly snapped into place. The sudden obsession with Wyatt’s money, the desperate push to make Melanie his fiancée, the staged dinner, and finally, the brick. It wasn't just about controlling Wyatt’s construction millions. It was about stealing my birthright before I could claim it.
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