Chapter 2 - The Blood in the Driveway
Dr. Vance let me into Room 4 twenty minutes later.
Sarah was sitting up slightly in the hospital bed, wrapped in a warm flannel blanket that swallowed her small frame. Her dark hair was tangled, flecked with dried mud and a dark smudge of crimson near her temple. A white bandage covered a nasty scrape just above her left eyebrow, and a greenish-yellow bruise was already blooming across her cheekbone like a stain on silk.
She looked small. Too small for the world that had just tried to break her.
"Hey, bug," I choked out, my voice breaking as I knelt beside the bed. I didn't want to scare her by grabbing her too fast, so I rested my hands gently on the edge of the mattress.
Sarah didn't look at me for a long time. She stared straight ahead at the IV pole, her breathing shallow and rhythmic. Then, slowly, her dark eyes shifted downward. They met mine.
There was no warmth in them. No relief that her dad had finally come home. Just a hollow, echoing stillness that terrified me more than any scream could have.
"Daddy," she whispered. The word was so quiet I barely caught it.
"I’m here, sweetie. I’m right here. Nobody is ever going to hurt you again. I promise you."
She didn't answer. She just raised one small hand, her fingers trembling slightly, and touched the bandage on her forehead. Then she looked back down at the blanket and pulled it higher around her chin, turning her face toward the wall.
Dr. Vance motioned me out into the hallway, closing the heavy door softly behind us.
"She’s in shock, Mr. Sherwood," the doctor said, his voice professional and kind. "Physically, she’ll heal. The concussion is mild, and the cuts and bruises will fade within a couple of weeks. But psychological trauma in an eight-year-old... that’s a different battle. She needs absolute quiet, safety, and a familiar environment as soon as she’s discharged."
"Can I take her home today?" I asked.
Dr. Vance hesitated. "Normally, yes. But considering the police are treating your home as a potential crime scene—"
"A crime scene?" I interrupted.
"Your brother can fill you in," Dr. Vance said gently. "Just keep her calm. Don't push her to talk about what happened until she’s ready."
An hour later, Christopher drove us back to the house in the suburbs. The rain had stopped, leaving behind a heavy, dripping fog that clung to the streetlamps like a shroud.
When we pulled into our driveway, my stomach clenched.
There, near the edge of the garage door, a dark, irregular stain darkened the cold concrete. Blood. Carolyn Sherwood, our neighbor, had already placed a yellow traffic cone over it to keep stray dogs away before the police arrived.
I stepped out of the car, the damp air biting at my skin, and walked slowly toward the stain. I knelt down, touching the edge of the concrete with my fingertips. It was real. It wasn't a nightmare I was going to wake up from.
Christopher walked up behind me, shining his flashlight across the driveway and up toward our front porch.
"The police processed the scene around 2:00 a.m.," Christopher said quietly. "They found drops of blood leading from the back patio door all the way down the driveway to where Carolyn found her. That means she didn't get hurt out here, Jamie. She got hurt inside the house. And then she crawled—or walked—out here by herself."
I stood up slowly, the blood rushing to my head. I looked at the front door of my house—the house I had worked eighty-hour weeks to buy, the house where I thought my family was safe while I was away providing for them.
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"Where is Melissa, Chris?" I asked, my voice dangerously low. "If she wasn't in the house... where the hell is my wife?"
Christopher clicked off his flashlight, the beam dying into the fog. "That’s the million-dollar question, Jamie. Because according to the toll road cameras, Melissa’s car hasn't moved from the garage in three days. But someone drove her car out of town at 1:15 a.m. tonight—right after I picked Sarah up from the ER."
