He Thought Mom Died, Went Mad After Truth

Chapter 2

I picked up the release. My grip on it tightened.

"You're putting the footage of her fall out there?"

Mason frowned. "Not public. It's an internal review. The accident's all over the news. The team owes the public an answer."

A cold laugh slipped out of me. "An answer that pins it on the dead woman? Spin her cries for help into panicked thrashing, then cut the part where your golden girl clipped the wrong carabiner?"

Jennifer's eyes welled. "Olivia, how can you think that of me? I just wanted to show I did everything I could."

Mason's face darkened. "Jennifer is already eating herself up over this. What more do you want from her? When your mom went over the edge, Jennifer almost went down with her."

I held his gaze. "I'm not signing. She's dead. I'm not letting you cut her up into PR to clean up Jennifer's name."

Jennifer snorted out a laugh. "Older folks are accident-prone. It happens. If she can help Mason's team with a safety campaign, at least some good comes of it."

Mason didn't push back. "Olivia, the dead don't come back. If your mom's death helps tourists be more careful, then it wasn't a total loss."

My whole body shook with rage. "Mason, she was your..."

Mason snapped at me. "Going to call her my mother again? Christ, Olivia, your mouth gets uglier by the day. My mother's alive and well at the private care home, where I pay good money every month to keep her comfortable. She's not yours to curse."

I swallowed the rest. Throwing it in his face now would let him off too easy.

Mason read it as a curse aimed at him. His expression iced over. "Drop the victim act. I'm trying to be civil. You're the one looking for a fight."

I turned to walk away.

He clamped down on my wrist. "Sign it."

I tilted my chin up at him. "Mason. You'd actually lay a hand on me?"

The words were barely out before his palm cracked across my face.

I went sideways into the wall. My ears rang.

"Playing the dead-parents card again?" he said, then forced my hand down and pressed my thumbprint onto the release.

Jennifer rushed to clutch his arm. "Mason, calm down. Don't do something you'll regret."

Mason's anger died the second he turned back to her. "Hey. Did I scare you?"

Jennifer shook her head. A flicker of something close to a smile sat behind her wet lashes. "I just don't want Olivia to hate you because of me."

Mason's eyes cut to me, cold. "Trust me. That's all she does. Blames everyone but herself."

He didn't even bother to drop his voice. "Her mom has an accident and suddenly she wants the whole world to go down with her."

He pressed a stack of authorization forms into Jennifer's hand. "Go on. Cut the footage. I'll smooth things over with the team."

The moment Mason got pulled away by a call from the station, Jennifer's whole face changed.

She picked up her tablet, pulled up the livestream playback, and started editing the video right in front of me like I wasn't even there.

The shot of Hazel pounding the glass and begging for help got cut first.

The moment her own hook locked onto the wrong bracket vanished next.

The clip of me screaming at Mason to climb up there himself, she kept. She blew it up bigger for emphasis.

Then she started laying captions over the top of it, one by one:

Family member loses control. Interferes with rescue operation.

Trapped victim becomes combative. Operation severely compromised.

Rescuer Jennifer puts her life on the line. Nearly dies in the line of duty.

I watched her rewrite reality with practiced hands. My stomach turned over.

Jennifer kept editing as she fired off a text to Mason. "Mason, does this work?"

His voice memo came back almost instantly, smug and indulgent. "That's my smart girl."

The memo kept going. "Olivia's mom is already dead. Doesn't matter what the internet says now."

Jennifer turned the volume all the way up. Loud enough for me to hear every word.

She lifted her face to mine, all sweet smiles. "Olivia. Don't take it personally, okay?"

I lunged across the table and snatched the phone right out of her hand.

Jennifer shrieked. "What the hell are you doing?!"

Mason's next voice memo dropped at exactly that moment. I tapped play.

"Jennifer, don't worry. Olivia's mom isn't useful for anything else now. Honestly? She's perfect crisis PR practice for you. At least her death will mean something."

That last line landed in my chest like a stone. "At least her death will mean something."

Then it came back to me.

Before the cable car ever malfunctioned, Hazel had tried to call Mason.

His phone had lit up on the livestream feed more than once. The contact name on the screen had read, "Mom."

He never looked at it. He just hit silent every time.

When Jennifer asked if he should take it, he'd laughed. "She's got a caregiver around the clock. Missing one call isn't gonna kill her."

A cold, clear calm settled over me.

Jennifer reached for the phone. I twisted out of her grip and brought the mic to my lips, speaking slowly and clearly, one word at a time.

"Mason. I want a divorce."