That meant Brandon had waited.

“What did he say?”

Mark glanced at his notes.

“He said you slipped during the storm. He said he attempted to locate you but conditions became unsafe, so he went for help.”

I looked at the monitor beside my bed.

Liam’s heartbeat continued filling the room.

“Gretchen was there.”

“Who is Gretchen?”

“His assistant.”

Mark wrote down her name.

“Did you see her?”

“No. I heard her.”

“What did you hear?”

I told him.

Not dramatically.

There wasn’t much to add.

Fifty million dollars.

The policy.

Gretchen.

Brandon saying I couldn’t have survived.

Mark stopped writing once.

“Does your husband know you’ve been rescued?”

“Does he?”

“Not from us.”

I looked toward the window.

Snow was blowing against the glass.

“Don’t tell him yet.”

Mark studied me for a moment.

Then he closed his notebook.

“That’s something we’ll discuss with the investigators.”

It wasn’t a promise.

But it was enough.

That was my first useful decision.

I stopped thinking about confronting Brandon.

I stopped thinking about calling him.

I let him believe the mountain had done exactly what he wanted.

Liam Arrived Three Days Later

The contractions started two nights later.

I was still in the hospital.

At 4:12 the next morning, Liam was born.

Seven pounds, four ounces.

Ten fingers.

Ten toes.

A small crease between his eyebrows that made him look annoyed whenever the nurses unwrapped him.

I held him against my chest and counted his breaths.

The red backpack sat on a chair across the room.

One of the rescuers had brought it to the hospital after the search.

The strap was torn near the buckle.

I kept looking at it.

My phone rang once that afternoon.

Brandon.

I watched his name on the screen until it stopped.

Then it rang again.

Deputy Ellison had already told me not to answer.

Brandon left a voicemail.

I didn’t listen to it until later.

His voice was shaking.

“Victoria, if somehow you get this, they’re still searching. I’m not leaving. I swear to you, I’m not leaving until they find you.”

I played it once.

Then handed the phone back to Mark.

“He left the mountain.”

“We know.”

“He left me there.”

Mark nodded.

“We know that too.”

That evening, he came back with another investigator.

They had spoken to park staff.

They had checked Brandon’s timeline.

And they had located something I didn’t know existed.

Brandon’s SUV had a built-in security camera system.

It wasn’t supposed to record private conversations continuously. But after an attempted break-in several months earlier, Brandon had enabled a parking and cabin security feature through an aftermarket system.

The system had saved audio and video clips from the afternoon of my fall.

Mark didn’t tell me everything immediately.

He only asked one question.

“Did your husband and Ms. Vance leave the park together?”

“I don’t know.”

He nodded.

“They did.”

Then he placed a tablet on the table beside Liam’s bassinet.

“We recovered a recording.”

I looked at the screen.

Brandon was driving.

Gretchen was in the passenger seat.

Her face was pale.

Brandon looked calm.

Gretchen spoke first.

“You pushed too hard.”

Brandon kept his eyes on the road.

“It worked.”

“You don’t know that.”

“She went over the edge.”

Gretchen turned toward him.

“And the insurance?”

“Once she’s declared dead, we file.”

“Fifty million?”

“Fifty.”

She was quiet.

Then she said, “And we split it the way we agreed?”

Brandon looked at her.

“Yes.”

The recording ended.

I stared at the black screen.

Liam made a small noise from his bassinet.

I reached over and rested my hand against his chest.

Mark asked, “Mrs. Prescott?”

I looked at him.

“What happens now?”

He closed the tablet.

“Now we let them keep talking.”

For the first time since Brandon put his hands on my shoulders, he didn’t know where I was.

But I knew exactly where he was.

And I finally had something stronger than my word against his.

He Held a Memorial for Us

Nine days after Liam was born, my husband held a memorial service for both of us.

I watched part of it from a private room at the hospital through a video feed investigators had arranged.

The service was held at a small chapel outside Whitefish.

There were white flowers near the front.

Two photographs stood beside them.

One was our wedding picture.

The other was an ultrasound image of Liam.

I had never seen that particular print before.

Brandon walked to the front wearing a dark suit.

Gretchen sat three rows behind him.

He put one hand on the lectern.

“Victoria was my whole life.”

I turned the volume down.

Liam was asleep beside me.

I didn’t need to hear the rest.

What mattered was who had come.

Friends.

Family.

People from Brandon’s company.

And, according to the investigator standing near the door, a representative connected to the insurance claim.

Brandon had already started the paperwork.

There were procedural issues because my body had not been recovered, but investigators believed he was pushing aggressively for the claim to move forward.

He wasn’t waiting for grief.

He was waiting for money.

The memorial gave investigators something else.

A place where Brandon and Gretchen expected to be surrounded by people who believed their story.

And a place where they could both be found at the same time.

I looked at Liam.

“I want to go.”

Mark shook his head.

“Victoria—”

“I want to be there.”

“You just had a baby.”

“I know.”

He looked toward the bassinet.

“You don’t need to prove anything by walking into that room.”

“I’m not proving anything.”

I pulled the red backpack from beneath the chair.

I had asked a nurse to help repair the torn strap with a temporary black stitch.

“I want him to see me.”

Mark didn’t answer immediately.

Then he said, “If we do this, you follow instructions.”

“Fine.”

“You don’t approach him alone.”

“Fine.”

“And Liam stays protected.”

I looked at my son.

“Absolutely.”

 

The Woman in the Chapel Doorway

The memorial was still going when I arrived.

I wore flat shoes because my right leg was bruised badly enough that heels were impossible.

My coat covered most of the hospital clothes underneath.

The red backpack hung from my shoulder.

Liam was in a portable bassinet with a nurse and an officer in the lobby outside the chapel.

I stood behind the closed door for several seconds.

Through it, I could hear Brandon.

“There are no words for losing your wife and child at the same time.”

Mark stood beside me.

“Ready?”

I put my hand on the door.

“Yes.”

I opened it.

The hinges made almost no sound.