Chapter 8
My mom had nothing more to say to Dominick. So, she responded coldly, “Dominick, you don’t deserve to see her.”
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Dominick’s face contorted with anger. “Don’t lie to me! Stop lying to me! Bring Peyton out here! Dead or not, she couldn’t be dead! She can’t be!”
My mom, pushed past her limit by Dominick’s unreasonable outburst, snapped back, her voice shaking with emotion, “Can’t be? My daughter suffered right before my eyes, and you still think this is some lie? Dominick, I won’t let Peyton rest uneasy, and I sure as hell won’t let you see her again for the rest of your life!”
With that, my mom hung up. Her hand trembled as she blocked Dominick’s number.
Dominick looked drained, his expression a tangle of exhaustion and frustration. He clenched his fists, sat in silence for a moment, and then bolted out of the house. I followed him into the car, assuming he was headed to find Madison again. But instead, he plugged in the navigation and drove straight to the nearest hospital.
As soon as we stepped inside, Dominick demanded to know where the intensive care unit was. “Is there a patient named Peyton here? I’m her husband. I need to know if she’s here in the ICU.”
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The nurse shot him a disdainful look, unimpressed by his frantic behavior. “Are you really her husband? If you are, how could you not even know which hospital your wife is in?”
The nurse didn’t believe Dominick. She must’ve thought he was a scammer or worse. Security was called, and he was forcibly escorted out of the hospital.
Dominick slammed his hands against the steering wheel. I figured he had embarrassed himself enough and would finally settle down. What was the point? He should have just let it go. We could have spared each other the pain and let me go
peace.
in
But what happened next caught me completely off guard. Dominick, so unlike himself, pulled out his phone and called the police. “Hello, officer? I want to report a missing person. My wife–she’s gone…”
Listening to Dominick on the phone, sounding as though he was genuinely worried about my safety, I couldn’t help but find it laughable–ridiculous, even. Did it really take getting this close to divorce for him to realize he still had a wife?
The police took Dominick’s call very seriously and asked him to head to the nearest station. I watched as he earnestly explained his relationship with me to the officers but glossed over Madison’s involvement with surprising ease.
But the officers weren’t so easily fooled. “You said you left home after an argument with her a month ago and haven’t seen her
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since. You didn’t reach out to her at all? As her husband, what exactly have you been doing this past month?”
Dominick looked a little flustered. “I was… helping a friend clear her mind.” At this, the two officers exchanged a glance, clearly picking up that something didn’t add up.
They handed Dominick a glass of water before heading back to the office and shutting the door behind them. Curiosity got the better of me, so I followed quietly and overheard the officers talking.
One officer said, “Keep him here. There’s something fishy about this so–called husband. For all we know, this could be a murder case. Go look into him and his wife’s background.”
I was stunned. The officers‘ instincts were sharper than I expected, and the direction this was heading caught me off guard. Still, since Dominick had filed the report, the police dutifully began looking into my whereabouts.
A few minutes later, they returned with grave expressions and confronted Dominick. “Your wife has been in the ICU for a month, and you didn’t know? Ambulance records show she was admitted on the same day you two fought.”
The officer’s tone turned increasingly stern. Dominick, however, looked as if he had turned to stone–his expression blank, stunned. “Ambulance? The ICU? She’s actually dying?”
But just as quickly, he snapped back into his usual defiant self, shaking his head and slamming his hand on the table. “That’s
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impossible! How much did she pay you guys to trick me into believing this nonsense? Are you all in on this?”
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The officer had clearly had enough and barked, “Sit down! We’ve already confirmed with the hospital that your wife suffered massive blood loss due to a miscarriage. According to our investigation, you’ve been traveling across several cities this past month. In other words, while your wife was fighting for her life in the ICU, you were off sightseeing with your ‘friend‘?”
Disgust and suspicion flickered in the officer’s eyes as he leveled a piercing stare at Dominick. “Mr. Vanderbilt, I strongly advise you to cooperate with our investigation from here on out.”
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