“Dad,” Emily whispered.
I crossed the gravel before anyone else moved.
Her knees buckled when she reached me. I caught her carefully, feeling the tremor running through her whole body. “Who did this?”
She tried to breathe and folded in pain.
The medic reached us with a trauma bag. I waved him in, but Emily grabbed my sleeve with surprising strength.
“Mom’s new family,” she said. “All of them. Eleven. They filmed it.”
The words landed without drama. That was what made them terrible.
My ex-wife, Denise, had remarried into the Whitaker family two years earlier: loud money, louder lawyers, and a habit of treating other people like rented furniture. I knew some of them. Smiling people in expensive clothes. Church photos. Charity dinners. Sons with polished watches. Daughters with perfect teeth. Men who shook your hand too hard.