Chapter 1 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
“ARE YOU SURE SHE’S DEAD, MICHAEL? BECAUSE IF YOUR MOTHER WAKES UP, SHE’LL TELL EVERYONE WHAT WE DID!”
“If she’s still breathing, Emily, we can’t risk it. She knows too much about the money.”
“And what about Aiden? We can’t leave a four-year-old alive down there if he saw what happened!”
Those were the words I heard while lying facedown in a Colorado ravine, my blood soaking into the pine needles beneath my cheek.
The man speaking was my son.
The woman discussing whether I should live or die was his wife.
And the little boy they were talking about was my four-year-old grandson.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to believe I had misunderstood.
But when I heard Michael say, “We tell the police they slipped. Both of them. It was a terrible accident,” I understood something no mother should ever have to understand.
My own child was willing to let me die.
My name is Margaret Collins. I was sixty-three years old when my son tried to erase me from his life.
Until that morning, I had believed the worst tragedy I would ever endure was losing my husband, Robert, to a sudden heart attack.
I was wrong.
Nearly a year after Robert's death, Michael invited me to visit his family in Boulder, Colorado.
He sounded unusually affectionate.
“We miss you, Mom. Aiden keeps asking when Grandma is coming.”
I had not seen my grandson in almost a year.
So I packed my suitcase and flew to Colorado, carrying the hope that perhaps my family was finally finding its way back to me.
Michael was thirty-eight, handsome, ambitious, and increasingly impatient with anyone who questioned him.
Emily, his thirty-five-year-old wife, was polished and soft-spoken, but there was something guarded about her.
They lived in a beautiful house overlooking the mountains.
Everything looked perfect.
Too perfect.
On my second morning there, Michael suggested a family hike.
“Fresh air, Mom. Beautiful scenery. It'll be good for all of us.”
Emily carried Aiden in a child carrier on her back.
He wore a little blue jacket and sang silly songs as we followed a narrow trail along a steep ridge.
I remember smiling.
For the first time in months, I felt like part of their family again.
Then the ground beneath my feet gave way.
I screamed as dirt and loose rocks collapsed beneath me.
My body slammed against the slope, bounced over jagged stones, and disappeared into the wooded ravine.
Aiden's terrified scream echoed above me.
Then everything went black.
When I opened my eyes, I could barely breathe.
My left arm felt broken.
Blood ran down my temple.
Somewhere nearby, a child whimpered.
“Aiden?” I tried to whisper.
But footsteps above me made me freeze.
I heard Emily.
“Are you sure she's dead?”
Then Michael answered.
“If she's breathing, we can't risk it.”
I pressed my face into the dirt.
He continued.
“She'll ask questions. Especially about the money.”
My blood turned cold.
What money?
What had my son done?
Then Aiden moaned again.
Emily's voice sharpened.
“We say they slipped. Both of them.”
Michael hesitated.
“What if someone finds him alive?”
There was a terrible silence.
Then Emily said something that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
“Then we make sure no one finds him.”
I heard footsteps moving away.
A moment later, an engine started somewhere beyond the ridge.
They were leaving us.
I waited until the sound faded.
Then I dragged my broken body toward the faint cries of my grandson.
“Aiden, sweetheart. Grandma's here.”
But when I reached him, I saw blood on the back of his little blue jacket.
May you like
His eyes were closed.
And he wasn't moving.
