Fourteen Seconds
Chapter 02 - Fourteen Seconds
At the hospital, Daniel learned that Emma had been underwater for fourteen seconds.
Fourteen seconds sounded small until he lived through each one again. He saw her disappearing beneath the petals. He felt the weight of her soaked dress. He remembered the silence before she coughed. Every time he closed his eyes, those seconds stretched into years.
The doctor said Emma had been lucky. Her lungs were irritated, and she needed observation overnight, but there was no sign of permanent injury. Daniel thanked him twice, then sat beside Emma's bed and watched the monitor trace each heartbeat.
Laura stood near the window, still wearing her green anniversary dress. It was dry except for the hem.
“I should have jumped in,” she said. “I panicked.”
Daniel looked at her. “Emma said she did what you told her.”
Laura's face tightened, then softened into grief. “I told her to step away from the edge. She must have misunderstood.”
“She said it after she nearly drowned.”
“She was scared and confused.” Laura crossed the room and reached for his shoulder. “Daniel, please don't turn this into something ugly. Our daughter needs us together.”
The words should have comforted him. Instead, they sounded rehearsed.
Mark arrived twenty minutes later with Daniel's mother, Helen. Mark hugged his brother, but his eyes moved quickly toward Laura. The glance lasted less than a second. Daniel might have missed it on any other day.
Helen kissed Emma's forehead and began praying under her breath. She had always protected the Mercer family from scandal, even when protection required pretending nothing was wrong.
A nurse entered carrying a clear plastic evidence bag. Inside was a small black device with a cracked clip.
“We found this tangled in the lining of Emma's dress,” she said. “It looks waterproof. Security thought it might belong to your family.”
Emma opened her eyes. “My recorder.”
Daniel remembered the school assignment. Emma's class had been collecting sounds for a project called A Day in My Life. She had recorded breakfast, the family dog, and Daniel singing badly in the car.
Laura stepped forward too quickly. “It's ruined. I'll throw it away.”
Daniel took the bag first.
May you like
For the first time since the pool, Laura looked genuinely afraid.
The recorder's tiny red light was still blinking. A drop of pool water slid down the inside of the bag, but the display showed that the file had never stopped. Whatever Emma had heard before the fall—and whatever the adults had said afterward—was waiting inside.
