Mountains disappeared into storm clouds.
A ravine dropped beyond the snow-covered barrier, filled with jagged rock and narrow shelves of ice.
Daniel walked toward the edge.
I stayed several feet back.
His phone buzzed again.
He pulled it out, and the screen lit before he angled it away.
I saw the message.
We’re almost free.
Don’t lose your nerve now.
The sender’s name was Vanessa.
Vanessa Hale had been introduced to me eight months earlier as a corporate consultant helping Daniel’s company restructure an acquisition.
She was elegant, careful, and always slightly too familiar with him.
I had asked Daniel once whether something was happening between them.
He had laughed.
Now I stared at the glowing screen in his hand.
“What does that mean?”
Daniel locked the phone.
“Nothing.”
“Let me see it.”
“Claire.”
“Let me see the phone.”
His expression changed.
I had seen Daniel angry before.
This was different.
There was no heat in his face.
Only calculation.
I stepped backward.
“Daniel?”
“Give me your hand.”
“Why?”
“You’re standing too close to the edge.”
I looked behind me.
The edge was still several feet away.
My heartbeat accelerated.
“I’m going back to the lodge.”
I turned.
He caught my coat from behind.
I screamed his name.
One arm hooked around me, not like an embrace but like a restraint.
“I’m sorry,” he said near my ear.
Then he shoved me forward.
My boots lost the trail.
The world disappeared beneath me.
I remember reaching backward for him.
I remember snow rushing past my face.
I remember thinking, absurdly, that I hadn’t finished painting the nursery.
Then my shoulder struck something hard.
I rolled.
Rock tore through my coat.
I landed on a narrow ledge buried beneath loose snow.
Pain detonated along my ribs and wrist.
For several seconds, I couldn’t inhale.
My first thought wasn’t that I was dying.
It was the baby.
I pressed both hands against my belly.
“Move,” I whispered.
“Please move.”
Nothing.
Panic became worse than the pain.
“Come on, sweetheart.
Please.”
Then I felt it.
A faint push beneath my palm.
I started sobbing.
“I’m here.
I’m still here.”
Snow slid from the rocks above me.
Then footsteps sounded somewhere near the ridge.
Daniel hadn’t left.
I held my breath.
A woman’s voice came through the wind.
“Can you see her?”
Vanessa.
She had been nearby the entire time.
Daniel answered, “No movement.”
“Are you sure?”
“Look at the drop.”
Vanessa’s voice lowered.
“What if someone finds her?”
“The storm will cover the tracks.
She’ll be frozen before rescue gets here.”
I closed my eyes.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to claw my way up the rock and tear the truth from both of them.
But I knew Daniel would climb down and finish it if he heard me.
So I stayed silent.
Then Vanessa said, “And the policy?”
Daniel gave a quiet laugh.
“Forty million after the claims process.
Enough to clear the loans and get the board off my back.”
My stomach turned.
Months earlier, Daniel had increased my life insurance, claiming his financial adviser wanted stronger protection before our daughter was born.
I had signed because spouses signed things for each other.
Vanessa asked another question.
“What about the trust?”
Daniel went silent.
The wind carried his next words
