Spencer POV

I almost took the highway.

I should have taken the highway. The highway was faster, better lit, and didn't require the specific kind of attention that the mountain roads demanded in rain like this. But I'd driven the highway home four hundred times and my brain had started finishing the route without me, leaving my conscious mind alone in the dark with a sixteen-year-old boy's chart and the particular sound a waiting room makes when everything has already gone wrong.

The mountain road required both hands and focus. That was the only reason I took it.

Ten Years in emergency medicine and I still hasn't found the off switch. Sage said I was married to the Job, usually with the specific energy of someone who had decided your life was her personal renovation project. She wasn't wrong, she was almost never wrong, which was its own kind of exhausting.

But saving lives was clean and straightforward. You either did it or you didn't, and the options were medical, not emotional and I was good with medical options in a way I had proven expensively, in the form of divorce papers three years ago that I was not good with emotional ones.

Ella had said "you're more present with strangers dying than you are with me."

And I hadn't argue, that had been the problem.

I drove carefully, with both hands, full attention on the wet road ahead. Rain like this turned mountain curves into dangerous suggestions. I'd seen what happened when people forgot that, I'd treated what happened when people forgot that, and I had no interest in becoming my own patient.

The headlights appeared lower on the road, maybe two curves ahead. It was a smaller car, moving faster than the conditions needed, I eased off the accelerator and watched. I felt something in my chest, the same thing I felt whenever things were about to go sideways.

I'd learned to trust that feeling. Then I saw the second vehicle.

It had been sitting on the roadside, and it pulled out behind the smaller car with a purpose that had nothing casual in it. It closed the distance too fast. My foot was already coming off the accelerator when it hit her.

It accelerated and made contact, full deliberate force into her rear bumper, and I said something out loud in my empty car that I will not repeat.

The smaller car fishtailed and caught itself. The second hit came at an angle, harder, more calculated, and this time the guardrail met the car at the weak join and gave like it was made of something cheaper than metal, and then the car was gone, over the edge, into the dark below, and I was already braking, already pulling over, already out of the car before I'd made any decision about any of it.

I reached for my phone and emergency kit.i called 911 while I ran the embankment, gave my location and what I'd seen, the deliberate impact, hit and run, vehicle heading back toward the city and the operator told me to wait for emergency services. I told her I was an ER doctor and kept moving.

The embankment was steep and wet and didn't care. I went down hard on my hands twice, opened my palm on something sharp and kept going. The car had hit the river forty feet below, I could see the shape of it, headlights still cutting weakly through the murk before the water claimed them entirely. It was sinking and inside, barely visible through the fractured windshield was movement.

I didn't think about the temperature when I hit the water, it would've made me slower.

The cold went straight through the skin and muscle and organs. I surfaced, found the car and swam against the current with everything I had left after a fourteen-hour shift, which turned out to be barely enough.

The driver's side was folded inward at an angle that wasn't opening for anyone. I could see her through the intact window, she was young, with brunette hair suspended in the water filing the cabin, she had a head wound at her left temple already bleeding pink into the food. Her eyes were half-open. The water was at her neck.

I found a rock and turned my face away and put my elbow through the window with everything I had. The glass gave way. I reached in, ignored the edges, found the seatbelt release, felt it click and pulled her through with controlled urgency.

She wasn't breathing when I got her to the bank. I began CPR, thirty compressions, I'd done this enough times that my body knew the sequence the way it knew how to walk.

She coughed. Water came out of her and she gasped like her body had remembered at the last possible second that it wasn't done yet. I kept my hands on her shoulder and checked her pulse, she was alive.

I heard sirens in the distance. I looked up at the road, the vehicle that hit her was gone, and drove away.

I looked back down at the woman breathing shallowly in the wet scrub beside me.

St. Benedicts was twelve minutes from here, if she was in a hospital database, she was findable.

If she was findable, whoever had just driven away at a measured, unbothered speed would find her.

My phone buzzed, it was Sage's name on the screen because of course it was, because Sage called at the exact wrong moment.

I declined it and then picked the woman up, got her weight distributed across my arms, and carried her toward my car.

My private clinic was twenty minutes east. Off-system, off-record, staffed tonight by a nurse I trusted with my own life because I'd had occasion to test that trust and she hadn't failed it. The woman in my arms was breathing, she had a head wound and probable internal bruising and a body temperature that needed addressing in the next thirty minutes.

She also had someone who had tried to kill her tonight and driven away like they intended to try again.

The ambulance could have the accident report. They could have the guardrail and the tire marks and the rain-soaked embankment.

She was coming with me.

Spencer POV

Juliet Richard opened the clinic door at eleven fifty PM in surgical scrubs and an expression that said she'd been expecting something like this, which was fair, I'd never called her at midnight with good news. We had the kind of professional relationship built entirely on high-pressure situations and mutual silence afterward. She'd covered for me twice, and I'd covered for her once in a way that technically never happened. We were even.

"She's alive," I said, carrying the woman through the door. "I witnessed a deliberate hit and run. We need to be discrete."

She stepped aside. "Come in."

I carried her in and laid her on the examination table and Juliet was already moving. She checked the pupils first, then pulse, then started cutting through the wet clothing. I assisted where needed and stayed out of the way where not.

"What really happened?" Juliet asked.

"It was at the mountain road." I replied. "Someone ran her off deliberately through the guardrail into the river and I pulled her out."

"Any witnesses?"

"Just me."

"Did you call the police?"

"I called it in as a hit and run." I paused. "Then I brought her here instead of letting the ambulance take her."

Juliet's hand didn't stop working. "Why?"

"The car that hit did so deliberately." I looked at the woman on the table. "Whoever did this wanted her gone. I didn't want her in a system where the wrong person could make a phone call and find out she survived."

Juliet was quiet for a moment before speaking. "Okay, that's a reasonable explanation."

The injuries were significant but survivable. She definitely had a concussion. Three ribs were cracked on the left side, consistent with the door impact. Lacerations across her right arm and left collarbone from the window glass, needing sutures. Bruising up the left side of the neck and shoulder that would look horrible by morning. Her vitals had been unstable on the drive here but had stabilize now.

Juliet worked in silence for awhile. "She was crying before this happened."

I looked up.

"Mascara." Juliet nodded toward the woman's temple. "She wiped it at some point but didn't get it all. Whatever tonight was, this wasn't the first bad thing happened to her."

I said nothing. I'd noticed the mascara in the car. I'd filed it and kept driving.

"You're not curious?" Juliet asked.

"I'm always curious." I said quietly. "I just don't announce it."

"That's your whole thing, isn't it." She tied off the last suture. Then she looked at me. "Won't you check your hand?"

"Later." I replied.

She shook her head and checked the monitors one more time, made notes and pulled off her gloves. "She'd stable. I'll get room ready for her. And Spencer...." She stopped at the door. ".... whatever this is, be careful. People who move that fast after an accident aren't amateurs."

Then she left me alone with a woman whose name I didn't know yet and a palm that was going to need stitches.

Her clothes had yielded nothing useful. No wallet, no phone, either lost in the river or she hadn't had them on her person, which seemed strange. There'd been a paper bag, waterlogged and destroyed, that Juliet had set aside with the rest of the personal effects. Whatever had been in it was ruined.

I photographed her face and sent it to David with a single line: Need an ID. Now.

Then I let Juliet stitch my hand, drank the worst clinical coffee, and waited.

My phone buzzed thirty minutes later.

Katrina Lancaster, 27. Cruz marriage...see attached.

I read it standing in the hallway. Then I pulled up the news.

Katrina Lancaster, Wife of Nicholas Cruz, Dead in Mountain Road Accident.

I checked the timestamp. Forty-five minutes ago. The accident had occured in less than two hours before that. Vehicle recovered from River. Body not recovered, current presumed responsible.

Investigation status: closed.

I read that part four times.

Closed with no body and the investigation was closed. Labeled accidental death, tragic and condolences to the Cruz family.

I called David back. He picked up on the second ring. "You saw the news?"

"How fast can a death investigation close with no body?"

"Normally?" He asked. "Weeks. Sometimes even months."

"This one closed in under two hours."

Silence on his end, before he spoke. "That's not standard pace, Ashford. That's someone with a direct line making a very specific request."

"Cruz Family."

"That would be my guess." He paused. "The woman you pulled out... she's supposed to be dead now, and you have her."

"I'm aware of that."

"Spencer." His voice shifted into something more careful. "If the Cruz closed a murder investigation in two hours, they're not going to appreciate a loose end."

"Then it's a good thing nobody knows she's here.'

I hung up before he could tell me anything else I already knew.

I took my terrible coffee into her room and sat in the chair beside her bed.

The monitors kept their quiet rhythm. Juliet had dimmed the lights. Katrina Lancaster, legally deceased as of approximately forty minutes ago, breathed with the slow, unconscious evenness of someone whose body had decided surviving was worth the effort even if the rest of her hadn't thought of it yet.

I looked at her face.

Divorce this morning. Dead tonight. Investigation closed before the river had finished draining from her car. The mascara at her temples she'd wiped but hadn't quite gotten. The paper bag in her personal effects, destroyed, that I'd never know the contents of.

Someone had wanted her gone badly enough to plan it, execute it and clean it up in under two hours. This wasn't rage. Rage was messy and usually involved someone's hands and a moment they regretted. This was planned. Someone had built a structure around her deletion and then pulled it down so fast she'd barely had time to drown.

The Cruz.

It was the only answer that fit the timeline, the resources, the specific speed of a cover-up that required calls to people who picked up.

She didn't know any of this. Where she was right now. Didn't know that to the world she was dead. Didn't know her accident had already been filed and closed and grieved.

Now she was here. In a private room that didn't exist in any system, with injuries that would heal and a death certificate that wouldn't. Whatever came next, whatever she decided to do with the second life she'd been handed tonight entirely by accident, that was going to be an interesting conversation.

I looked at her for a long time.

Who did you make angry enough to do this to you? I thought. And do they know it didn't work?

Katrina's POV

The first thing I noticed was the ceiling.

It was white and textured. I stared at it for what felt like a long time, processing it the way your brain processed simple things when it's rebooting from somewhere it was never supposed to go.

The ceiling was white. I was breathing. I was alive. That landed a second later. I was actually alive. My left side felt like someone had taken a crowbar to my ribs, my head was an experiment in pain I hadn't consented to, and my throat felt like I'd swallowed the entire river rather than just most of it.

I tried to sit up. The pain that exploded through my left side was so immediate and violent that I hissed. And a firm hand came to my shoulder.

"Easy." A male voice spoke. "You have three cracked ribs on the left side. Sitting up fast is going to be a no from your body for awhile."

I turned my head. The man beside me was early thirties, and had a blank expression. He was sitting in a chair like someone who had been there for hours.

"Who are you?" I asked, voice came out wrecked.

"I'm Spencer Ashford," He said. "I'm an ER doctor. I pulled you out of the river."

I stared at him.

"The river." I repeated.

"Yes. You went off the mountain road around eleven PM." He said flatly. "I was behind you on the road and I witnessed it."

My brain tried to file everything. The brakes, the rain, the car behind me, being too close and then the impact, and then no road, no ground, just...

"Someone hit me," I said.

"Twice on purpose." He paused. "You went through the guardrail into the river. I pulled you out and brought you here to my private clinic. So you're off the books."

"Off the...." I stopped. "Why off the books?"

The door opened before he answered. A woman came in with the same energy as the him. She wore a stethoscope and did the full check without small talk. Checked my pupils, monitors, pulse, all of it under ninety seconds.

"Vitals are stabilizing," she said, then looked at me directly. "I'm Dr. Richard. How's your pain level?"

"Manageable." I said, even though it was a lie. "What happened to my ribs?"

"It's door impact, they're heal." She paused. "Ms. Lancaster, when you came in we did a full exam. And I need tell you something and I need you to stay calm when I do."

"Every sentence that starts that way doesn't end well." I said.

"You're pregnant."

"Pregnant," I repeated, still unable to grab the word.

"Yes." She replied.

"How..." I stopped, I knew obviously knew how. "How far?"

"Based on the ultrasound, approximately ten weeks."

Ten weeks pregnant, all these while I was pregnant and I didn't know. I could've died not knowing.

"There's more," Dr. Richard said.

What more could there be?

"It's twins."

Twins. Three years of fertility specialists and dinner questions about my cycle and being told I was failing to produce something I had apparently been producing all along, twins specifically, which felt like the universe had a sick sense of humor. I had been carrying twins the entire time they were replacing me.

"Twins." I repeated.

"Both are still viable," Dr. Richard said, pulling a chair close, and her voice shifted to something more deliberate. "Which is genuinely remarkable. Mrs. Lancaster, because I need you to understand what these babies survive tonight." She folded her hands. "The crash alone, blunt force trauma, the impact your body absorbed, statistically that should have ended both pregnancies immediately. Then there was the near-drowning. Oxygen deprivation is one of the fastest ways to lose a pregnancy, let alone two.

"So they should be dead," I said quietly.

"By every reasonable medical probability, yes. But they're not." She said sharply. "However, and I need you to hear this clearly, surviving tonight doesn't mean you're out of danger. You are now one of the highest-risk pregnancies I have ever assessed."

"What do you mean?"

"It means the next four weeks are the most critical window. The trauma your body sustained has enormous stress on the pregnancy. You could lose one twin, or both. A complication could develop tomorrow or three weeks from now with very little warning." She held my gaze. "And if you make it to full term, which is a big if, delivering twins after a pregnancy this compromised is going to be its own battle. Early delivery is almost certain. NICU time is almost certain. There will be complications, Ms. Lancaster. I can't tell you what kind or when, but I can tell you they're coming."

My hands were on my stomach before I could think.

"So what you're telling me," I said slowly. "Is that I survived a murder attempt, I'm pregnant with twins I didn't know existed, and even if everything goes perfectly From here, the next nine months are going to be a medical hell."

"That's an accurate summary, yes." She replied.

"Just great." I looked at the ceiling. "Why not include that my apartment also burned down? To complete the evening."

Dr. Richard looked at Spencer, Spencer looked at ne with that Sam blank, unbothered expression that I was starting to understand wasn't indifference, it was just how he was built."

"There's something else," he said.

He held out his phone.

KATRINA LANCASTER DEAD IN TRAGIC MOUNTAIN ROAD ACCIDENT.

I read it once then read the subheading.

Cruz Family Mourns Loss of Former Daughter-in-law. Investigation Concludes: Accidental Death.

I checked the timestamp. Less than five hours after I'd gone off that road. No body found, and investigation was concluded. Case closed. Katrina Lancaster, filed and finished.

"They didn't even look," I said.

"They didn't need to." Spencer's voice stayed neutral. "Someone made calls, fast. Specific calls to people who picked up immediately. That kind of speed doesn't happen without serious power behind it." He took the phone back. "I watched the car hit you and sped off."

"It's the Cruz," I said.

"That's the only name that fits."

I sat with that. With the headline on his phone and my hands on my stomach and the specific, devasting clarity of understanding that the family who handed me divorce papers had apparently decided paperwork wasn't sufficient.

"If you surface," Spencer said, cutting though my thoughts. "They'll know they failed, and next time they won't leave a witness."

His eyes moved briefly to my hands still pressed flat against my stomach. "You're not just deciding for yourself anymore."

The room went quiet.

My ribs ached, and my heart pounded. Somewhere underneath my hands, two heartbeats that had survived everything tonight with stubbornness.

Nicholas's children, I thought. Growing inside me while his family signed my death certificate.

The room went quiet.