* * *

When she woke up again she was in the hospital, attached to what seemed like a thousand wires. Right away, she knew. There was no moment of not remembering this time, though she would have preferred that. Her eyes looked for someone to tell her about her son, but the room was empty.

“He—ey,” she said. “Hey... I’m here.”

A nurse came in a moment later, and she smiled at Winnie before hitting a button on the wall. “Paging Dr. Willis, the patient is awake.”

The patient, Winnie thought. That was her; and the nurse didn’t even have to say her name or room number. The fear of what that meant made Winnie close her eyes.

The nurse carried over a plastic cup and inserted the straw between Winnie’s lips.

“Just a little, I know your throat must be a mess.”

Winnie drank a few sips and then opened her mouth to start her barrage of questions, but the nurse cut her off.

“Dr. Willis will be here in a moment. Save your throat and ask them when he gets here.” She didn’t say it unkindly, and Winnie thought she was probably right; even the attempt at speaking had left a burning in her throat. Dr. Willis came in a few minutes later; he was youngish, with ginger hair and an aww-shucks air about him.

“Mrs. Crouch,” he said, coming to stand by the bed. “We’re very happy to see you awake. You had a pretty serious concussion.”

Winnie gathered his words and sorted them in her mind, her eyes closed. Everything was taking too long to understand.

“How long...?”

“Eleven days.” He tilted his head to the side when he said it, and for some reason that made Winnie cry.

“Where is my son? Where is my son?” She started coughing after that, and it took several minutes for her body to calm down enough to hear Dr. Willis speak.

“He’s fine. He’s with your sister.”

The relief rode through her body with such force that she tried to sit up. The wires yanked, the machine beeped and the nurse was at her side, pushing her back down gently as the doctor watched.

“Police found him in Greenlake Park a few hours after you were taken to the hospital. He had no idea what was happening at home, and his intention had been to run away.” He paused, and the weight of that hit Winnie in the gut. He knew now, dear God, he knew his father had been murdered by his uncle. Dr. Willis, seeing the look on Winnie’s face, gave her a moment to process. “There is a detective here that would like to talk to you. You don’t need to if you don’t feel up to it, but they’ve been haunting the halls and annoying my nurses. Do you want to talk to them, Mrs. Crouch?” Winnie didn’t hesitate before nodding. She very much wanted to talk to them and get more details about Samuel.

The police detective introduced himself as Detective Rey Abbot. He pulled a chair up to Winnie’s bed and looked at her with genuinely sympathetic eyes when he asked her how she was.

“I’m worried about my son. I’m confused about what happened.” He nodded like he understood all of this and offered Winnie the box of tissues when she started to cry.

“Your sister-in-law, Amanda Straub, said that your brother Dakota and your husband had issues for some time.” He paused, and Winnie shook her head in confusion.

“Issues? My husband wasn’t overly fond of my brother. Dakota is—erratic, but Nigel also let him move into our house when his wife kicked him out.”

“Mrs. Crouch, we have reason to believe that it was a little more serious than that. That their relationship may have declined over recent months.”

“I don’t understand why you’re saying any of this. Nigel is dead and Dakota killed him. I saw it with my own eyes.”

“Your brother and Nigel argued a short distance away from the house, just across the street at the park. An eyewitness says they saw a man run across the street in the direction of your house, and then another followed behind shortly after. Your brother stabbed Nigel here...” he pointed to a spot on his own chest and Winnie remembered the flow of blood she’d tried to stop by pressing down...the blood had slipped through her fingers regardless. She was lost in that moment, the memory of the blood on her hands, as the detective discussed her husband’s murder in his quiet, matter-of-fact tone.

“—he then tied up both you and a woman named Terry Russel. Mrs. Russel was found tied up, dead from a gunshot wound to her head...in the apartment in your home. When police arrived at the scene, you were running out of the house. Records from the alarm company confirmed that someone disarmed the alarm from inside the house shortly before we arrived.”

He watched her face carefully. Winnie was unable to hide what she was feeling.

“My brother must have disarmed it before he ran out. The door was wide open. He must have cut me free, too.” She couldn’t breathe, the memories were fresh pain. She clawed at her neck, searching the detective’s face for help. What was happening? Had Dakota changed his mind about killing her at the last minute? Or maybe he never intended to hurt her or Sam, only Nigel.

“Get out.” The nurse took one look at Winnie, casting a disdainful look at Detective Abbot. He started to say something but clearly thought better of it, glancing at Winnie before heading out of the room. Winnie reached for the nurse, unable to catch her breath, her hands grabbing at air.

“She’s having a panic attack,” she heard someone say. And then there were more people, and then there was nothing. When Winnie woke, her sister was sitting in the chair the detective had occupied.

“Shelly,” she said, struggling to sit up. “How’s Samuel?”

Shelly looked ten years older than the last time Winnie had seen her. Her mouth was curved in an ugly line, and the rest of her looked almost loose at the seams.

“He’s worried about you, but other than that, he’s doing as well as you can expect.”

Winnie relaxed back into her pillow. There were a dozen questions cueing up in her brain and she was too foggy to organize them. “Dakota...” she said.

Shelly’s pinched features twitched and then her mouth sagged open to release the rest of the story. Winnie tried to piece it together between her sister’s sobs.

“Wait... Shelly...are you saying they haven’t caught him?” Winnie felt like her stomach was about to pay a visit to her throat.

“N-n-no...” Shelly was dry-heaving now. “He killed that woman and then, and then he...ran.”

“Ran where...? Did he cut me free?” Winnie was starting to cry now. “He killed Nigel. Where is he, Shelly?”

Shelly stood up and came to sit on the edge of the bed, taking Winnie’s hands in her own. They cried together for a few minutes, just holding hands, before her sister said, “They don’t know, Pooh Bear. When the police arrived, he was already gone, the front door was wide open like he ran out pretty fast...”