Chapter 3 - The Unraveling
Allison stopped a foot away from where I lay on the scorched earth. Without hesitating, she knelt down right into the dirt, ignoring the fine dust staining her designer jeans. With gentle, trembling hands, she reached behind me and began untying the rough nylon rope binding my useless legs to the truck’s bumper.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Richard snapped, lunging forward to grab her arm.
“Get your hands off me, Richard,” Allison said, her voice dropping into a tone so icy it made him flinch. She jerked her arm away, yanked the final knot loose, and tossed the coil of rope onto the hood of his truck with a sharp clatter.
She turned her attention back to me, carefully sliding her arms beneath my back and legs to help me sit up. “Can you stand, Elena?”
“No,” I rasped, leaning against her shoulder as a fresh wave of pain radiated through my torn elbows. “You know my legs don’t work.”
“I’ve got you,” Allison murmured, lifting my upper body while Kevin hurried over from the fence line to take my legs, lifting me with heavy, grim silence. Between the two of them, they carried me off the grass and onto the cool, shaded wooden boards of the back porch, gently setting me down into my wheelchair, which sat near the sliding glass door.
Richard stood out in the middle of the yard, completely isolated now. The rest of the guests had quietly retreated toward their cars parked along the curb, whispering among themselves, eager to escape the toxic fallout of a secret exposed to the light.
“You’re all out of your minds!” Richard yelled at their retreating backs, his face flushed a violent, mottled purple. “She’s manipulating you! She’s crazy!”
Allison walked up the porch steps, standing beside my wheelchair. She didn't shout back at him. She simply pulled out her cell phone, unlocked the screen, and held it up.
“What is that?” Richard demanded, taking a threatening step toward the porch. “Put that away.”
“I’m calling the police, Richard,” Allison said evenly. “And then I’m calling my husband’s corporate law firm. Because not only did I just watch you drag your disabled wife across the yard with a vehicle, but my phone’s video camera happened to be recording while we were standing by the fence. It caught the whole thing. Audio and video.”
Richard froze. The arrogant swagger that had defined him for years evaporated instantly, leaving behind a pathetic, cornered man. “You... you were recording?”
“I was filming a toast for your birthday party montage,” Allison said with biting disgust, tapping the screen. “Turns out, I captured a felony instead.”
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Before Richard could lunge at her phone, the distinct wail of distant police sirens began to wail down the suburban street, slicing through the late afternoon air like a blade.
Kevin stood by the edge of the driveway, his phone pressed to his ear. He looked up at Richard without a trace of sympathy. “I called them, too, Richard. My brother’s a lieutenant downtown. You’re done.”
