Chapter 10 - WHAT ASHLEY SAW
The memory returned in pieces.
I was lying on the ledge.
Snow covered my coat.
My left wrist was useless.
I had forced myself not to move after Michael looked down.
Then the footsteps disappeared.
Minutes passed.
Maybe twenty.
Maybe thirty.
I could not tell.
Then I heard something again.
Snow shifting above.
A woman's voice.
Ashley.
I had buried the memory beneath pain.
Now it returned clearly.
"Oh my God."
Not cruel.
Terrified.
I told Rebecca.
She immediately contacted investigators.
They pulled cellphone location data.
Michael's phone left the overlook at 4:18 p.m.
Ashley's stayed until 4:47.
She had remained twenty-nine minutes longer.
"Why?" Daniel asked.
Rebecca had a theory.
"Maybe she went back to confirm the death."
I thought about the voice.
Oh my God.
"She saw me."
Daniel stared at me.
"If she saw you alive, why didn't she call anyone?"
"Because she wanted me dead too."
Rebecca wasn't convinced.
"Or because she panicked."
I hated that possibility.
I wanted Ashley to be simple.
A monster.
Someone easy to hate.
But people were rarely simple.
The next morning, Ashley did something unexpected.
She walked into the Boulder Police Department with her attorney.
For four hours, nobody knew what she said.
Then Rebecca received a call from the prosecutor.
Ashley wanted immunity.
I stood so quickly my ribs protested.
"Absolutely not."
"Emma."
"She helped him."
"I know."
"She watched me fall."
"I know."
"She left me there."
Rebecca let me finish.
Then she said, "She's offering evidence."
"What evidence?"
"A recording."
My anger stopped.
Ashley had secretly recorded Michael for almost a year.
Not because she was innocent.
Because she didn't trust him.
She had recordings of financial fraud.
Affair conversations.
Insurance discussions.
And one conversation three weeks before the mountain trip.
Michael's voice was unmistakable.
"If she dies after the baby is born, everything gets complicated."
Ashley answered, "Then don't do this."
Michael said, "You wanted a future with me."
"I didn't say kill your wife."
"You knew where this was going."
Then the recording ended.
I looked at Rebecca.
"She knew."
"Yes."
"But maybe she didn't know the exact plan until later."
Daniel's expression remained stone.
"She still went."
Rebecca nodded.
"That's why she isn't being offered full immunity."
The prosecutor proposed a cooperation agreement.
Ashley would plead guilty to conspiracy, fraud, and failure to render aid.
In exchange, prosecutors would consider a reduced sentence if her testimony secured Michael's conviction for attempted murder.
I hated it.
Then Rebecca told me what Ashley had said during the interview.
When Michael pushed me, Ashley had panicked.
Michael ordered her back to the SUV.
She refused.
They argued.
Michael left.
Ashley returned to the cliff.
She looked over the edge.
She saw me move.
She knew I was alive.
And she did nothing.
But before leaving, she took one photograph.
A photograph of me on the ledge.
Because she wanted leverage against Michael.
That image could prove exactly where I landed.
It could prove Michael lied.
It could help reconstruct the fall.
Ashley had watched me bleed and thought about blackmail.
I closed my eyes.
"Give her the deal."
Daniel looked surprised.
May you like
I opened my eyes again.
"But make her testify in court while I'm sitting ten feet away."
