By three in the morning, the fourth rusted screw finally gave way. Cold rain swept through the open ventilation space, chilling my blood, but the sting of the wind was nothing compared to the fire radiating from my broken leg.
Using my forearms, I hauled my body through the narrow opening, dragging my dead weight across the wet grass into the muddy alleyway behind the house. I squeezed my eyes shut against the agony, pressing my face into the mud to stifle my screams.
I dragged myself three blocks through the pouring rain until I reached the back entrance of a 24-hour gas station. The graveyard shift clerk screamed when he opened the back door to throw out trash and found a woman covered in blood and mud, her leg grotesquely bent.
“Please,” I sobbed, my voice barely a whisper. “Don’t call my husband. Call the police… and call Marcus Vance.”
Marcus Vance was my uncle and one of the most formidable criminal defense and personal injury attorneys in Georgia.
When the paramedics cut off my torn jeans in the back of the ambulance, the lead officer took one look at the clean, concentrated fracture pattern on my tibia and knew this was no fall down the stairs. By 6:00 AM, Uncle Marcus walked into my trauma bay at Emory University Hospital. He didn’t waste time on empty tears. He kissed my forehead, pulled out a secure tablet, and motioned for two plainclothes detectives to step inside the room.
“They took my documents, Marcus,” I whispered through the pain medication. “They took everything.”
“They took nothing, Clara,” Marcus said, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp tone. “Because while they were sleeping, thinking you were trapped on that floor, the gas station clerk’s call allowed us to secure an emergency protective order, a search warrant for the house, and a forensic freeze on all joint accounts.”
He leaned closer, placing a discreet, high-definition digital recording badge on my hospital gown. “They think you’re still their quiet, broken victim. They’re going to come here to spin their story. Let them talk.”
