Chapter 4 - Blood on the Sea-to-Sky
The rain in British Columbia fell in relentless, blinding sheets on Friday evening.
Tristan had rented a high-performance sports coupe to navigate the coastal curves of Highway 99.
He was flying high on arrogance, believing he had outmaneuvered the law and silenced his family.
Beside him, Chloe Davenport was live-streaming their journey to her two hundred thousand followers.
She adjusted her camera angle, capturing Tristan’s smirk and the expensive leather interior of the vehicle.
"Heading up to Whistler with my favorite venture capitalist," she purred into the phone microphone.
"Living life in the fast lane, completely drama-free."
Tristan accelerated into a sweeping, unlit curve along the Sea-to-Sky Highway.
The road clung precariously to the granite cliffside, with the dark waters of Howe Sound churning hundreds of feet below.
The speedometer needle crept past eighty-five miles per hour.
A heavy logging truck hauling thirty tons of cedar emerged from the fog in the oncoming lane.
Tristan tapped the ceramic brakes.
On the rain-slicked asphalt, the high-performance tires lost their purchase instantly.
Hydroplaning.
The steering wheel spun uselessly in his grip.
The sports car pirouetted across the double yellow line like a tin can on ice.
Chloe’s high-pitched scream pierced the cabin.
The logging truck blew its air horn—a deafening blast that reverberated off the stone cliffs.
The truck driver swerved hard, attempting to avoid a direct head-on collision.
The massive steel bumper caught the passenger side of Tristan’s car with catastrophic kinetic force.
The sports coupe was catapulted off the asphalt.
It flipped twice through the air, sheared through the aluminum guardrail, and barrel-rolled down a sixty-foot rocky embankment.
The vehicle came to rest upside down against an ancient Douglas fir.
The live-stream cut out instantly.
Smoke hissed from the crumpled engine block into the freezing rain.
Inside the crushed passenger compartment, both occupants were trapped in their seats.
Tristan hung upside down, his seatbelt cutting into his chest.
His left femur was snapped clean in two, the bone pushing grotesquely against his tailored trousers.
Three ribs were fractured, puncturing his left lung with every agonizing breath.
Beside him, Chloe was unconscious, her face battered by the shattered windshield and her right collarbone completely shattered.
Blood dripped rhythmically onto the cracked glass of the sunroof.
It took two hours for emergency rescue crews to cut through the reinforced steel frame using hydraulic spreaders.
Sirens wailed along the desolate coastal highway as the rescue helicopters touched down on the tarmac.
Both victims were stabilized with neck braces, loaded onto stretchers, and airlifted directly to Vancouver General Hospital.
By midnight, Tristan had been dragged out of emergency surgery.
Surgeons had driven titanium rods through his femur and wired his shattered ribs together.
He was completely immobilized in a traction sling.
He couldn't sit up.
He couldn't turn his head.
He couldn't even reach the bedside pitcher of water without screaming in agony.
In the adjacent bed separated by a thin curtain, Chloe was whimpering under heavy doses of narcotics.
She had no family in Canada.
Tristan had no domestic connections in the country.
His corporate cards had been flagged due to the ongoing criminal investigation in Seattle.
The hospital administration was demanding an immediate designated emergency caregiver to sign for their long-term inpatient rehabilitation care.
Under Canadian hospital policy, an immobilized patient without local next-of-kin cannot be discharged to a recovery suite without a primary guardian's consent.
Tristan was trapped in a foreign medical system, broken, helpless, and bleeding through his bandages.
He had only one person left in his emergency contact directory whose identity verified his legal marriage.
His trembling fingers managed to tap the call button on his bedside phone.
In Seattle, my phone rang at two in the morning.
I looked at the Vancouver area code on the screen.
I didn't rush to answer.
I let it ring four full times before pressing the speakerphone button.
"Reese?" a shattered, trembling voice wheezed through the speaker.
The cold, domineering hedge fund executive was gone.
In his place was a terrified animal whimpering in the dark.
"Reese... you have to listen to me..."
"The car... we crashed..."
"Everything is broken... God, my leg is broken in half..."
I sat on the edge of my hospital bed in Seattle, my expression as cold as carved granite.
May you like
"Good evening, Tristan."
"How is the weather in British Columbia?"
