Chapter 4The Wrong Road to a Perfect Revenge

The text on my windshield was right. Toby had a Grade 3 concussion and internal bleeding. Another twenty minutes and he would have been gone.

I sat by his bed, watching the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest. I pulled up a photo on my phone—a picture of Mark’s "secretary," Sloane, and her son, Benny.

They were the same age. Same build. With blood and dust on their faces, trapped in a dark car, they would look identical to a panicked rescuer. Mark had gambled on my maternal instinct to cloud my vision. He wanted me to "rescue" Benny and bring him to the hospital, while Toby turned cold on the East Road.

And then, he would have blamed me. He would have used my "mistake" to destroy my career and my sanity.

My phone buzzed. It was my Captain.

"Nora, get back to the scene. Now."

"What’s wrong?"

"Just get here. And Nora... prepare yourself."

I left Toby with a trusted nurse and drove back to the mountain. When I arrived, the scene was a circus of flashing lights and news crews.

I saw Mark first. He was on a stretcher, his leg bandaged, sobbing hysterically over a body bag. A small body bag.

"Toby! My boy! How could this happen? Nora was supposed to save you! Why? Why weren't you on the West Road?"

The Captain and the other guys looked at me with a mix of pity and burgeoning horror.

"Nora..." the Captain whispered. "You’re the best we have. How did you miss the turn?"

Mark saw me. He tried to scramble off the stretcher, his face a mask of calculated fury. "You! Why did you go to the West Road? I told you East! I told you he was on the East Road! Who did you save, Nora? Whose kid was more important than our own?"

He fell, his injured leg giving out. A woman rushed forward to catch him—Sloane.

She looked at me, her eyes brimming with tears that didn't reach her heart. "Nora? As a first responder, how could you do this to your own child?"

[Here we go! The 'One That Got Away' makes her entrance.]

I stared at Sloane. She had been Mark’s "secretary" for two years. I had pulled her out of a minor kitchen fire once. I had invited her to our Thanksgiving dinner.

"Mark," I said, my voice echoing in the clearing. "You told me West. I have it on the log."

"Liar!" Mark screamed. "I would never misdirect a rescue for my own son! I was in the car! I knew where we were!"

He pointed a shaking finger at the body bag. "I can't even look at him. They told me the blood was already dry on his face when they found him. He died alone, Nora. Did he call for you? Did he wonder why his mommy didn't come?"

The crowd—the local volunteers, the hikers, the press—started to murmur. The cameras pivoted toward me. I was the villain. The mother who failed.

Sloane tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, a faint, cruel smirk touching her lips. "Nora, everyone knows Mark worshipped that boy. Why would he lie? Unless... you had a reason to be on the West Road? Was there someone else’s child you were trying to protect?"

The Captain stepped in, his face grim. "Nora, she has a point. Why did you deviate? What’s your relationship with the child you rescued?"

"I..."

"She's a murderer!" Mark wailed. "She confirmed the route with me three times! She intentionally avoided our son!"

A bystander threw a plastic water bottle at me. "Monster! You left your kid to die for a payout?"

"Kill her! She doesn't deserve the uniform!"

The crowd surged. My team had to hold them back. Mark looked at me, his eyes red, a terrifying coldness beneath the tears. "You aren't a mother. You're a ghost."

"Wait," I said, grabbing a megaphone from the back of an engine. The feedback squealed, silencing the crowd. I looked Mark straight in the eye. "You’re sure the boy I saved is a 'stranger'?"

"Of course!" Mark spat. "Otherwise Toby would be alive!"

"And you're sure that the boy in that bag is Toby?"

"If he's in the East, he's Toby!" Mark yelled.

I walked over to the body bag.

"Nora, what are you doing?" the Captain hissed. "Don't be morbid."

I unzipped the top.

Mark started to scream again. "Don't you dare look at him! You don't get to see his face after what you—"

His voice died.

The boy in the bag was Benny. Sloane’s son.

Sloane, who had been watching the drama with smug satisfaction, suddenly turned grey. She lunged forward, her composure disintegrating into a primal shriek.

"BENNY? NO! NO, THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE! HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE AT THE HOSPITAL! MARK, YOU SAID—"