50. Still us
STILL US
T he house was too quiet for a day like this.
Somewhere across the city, crews were building a stage, lights were warming, tickets were being scanned. Thousands of people were getting ready for a night they’d been waiting for.
But here, the afternoon moved slower.
Preston sat on the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees, bouncing his foot like he was trying to outrun the energy building in his chest. His voice drifted through the room in a soft rehearsal hum. My Chèrie Amour…
Spring stood near the window, one hand resting instinctively on her stomach.
Rae sat across the room with her laptop open, working on final edits of the documentary, but really just watching them both.
Today was the concert. And Preston had just found out he was going to be a father.
He glanced up mid-note and caught Spring’s reflection in the glass.
Then his eyes drifted lower, his smile changing. The next line came out softer, almost playful. “ My Chèrie Amour… ”
This time he sang it toward her. Toward the small secret they were carrying.
Toyota Center. Sold out. The thing everyone had been sprinting toward.
“You good?” Spring asked softly.
Preston nodded, then shook his head. “I will be. I just… I don’t know. Everything feels loud.”
“You won’t be alone,” she promised. “I’ll be there.”
That helped. You could see it in his shoulders.
Rae cleared her throat. “Spring, before we put a bow on today, can we talk about your dad?”
Spring turned. “You mean his reaction to our news? I thought I was the only one who caught that.”
“You weren’t,” Rae said. “When you talked about the babies, he looked shaken, like he was hiding something.”
Preston frowned. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. But I do know when someone is being caught off-guard,” Rae replied.
Spring exhaled. “That’s exactly what it felt like.”
Before anyone could say more, Preston’s phone rang.
He looked at the phone. “It’s Brian.” He answered, putting him on speakerphone. “G.L. talk to me, baby. What’s up?”
Brian didn’t waste time. “Is Spring with you?”
“Yeah, what’s going on?”
“I need to see both of you. Now.”
Spring and Preston exchanged a look. “Brian,” Preston said carefully, “today’s the concert.”
“I know,” Brian replied. “That’s why I’m calling now. This can’t wait.”
They didn’t say much on the drive over.
Rae sat in the backseat, hands folded tightly in her lap, while Preston drove with the same focus he used when it was showtime. Spring rode shotgun, staring out the window, mind moving faster than the traffic.
Brian had sounded serious.
By the time they pulled into the small medical building across town, the city noise had thinned out.
Preston opened Spring’s door before she could gather her things. “Ready?” he asked.
She nodded, even though none of them really were ready.
Inside, the receptionist recognized them and waved them toward the back.
Brian doesn’t sit when they arrived. He paced instead, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ve been digging,” he said. “Carefully.”
Spring’s stomach tightened – not with nausea this time. With instinct.
Brian pulled out a stack of paper and put them down. “The coroner’s report,” Brian continues, “was revised.”
Preston blinked. “Revised how?”
“The version everyone saw listed overdose complications,” Brian said. “But that wasn’t the original.” He pulled up a file on his tablet and turned it toward them. “Unfiled version,” he clarified. “Initial assessment.”
Spring leaned in first.
Cause of injury: blunt force trauma.
Her breath caught.
“They changed it?” Preston asked, uncertain.
“Yes,” Brian replies. “And that kind of revision doesn’t happen quietly unless someone’s motivated. And has money.”
Spring’s eyes stayed glued on the screen, pictures of her cousin’s cold body tough to look at.
She noticed an anomaly. “There was an indent.”
Brian looked at her sharply. “You noticed it, too.”
She nodded. “At the base of the skull. Circular. Too clean to be a fall.”
Brian exhaled. “Exactly.”
Spring’s voice dropped. “It looks like it could’ve come from a ring.”
Preston’s breathing became audible as it sped up. “What kind of ring?”
Spring didn’t answer immediately. She leaned in closer to the photo, studying the corner of the frame the coroner had captured almost by accident.
At first, it just looked like bruising. But the longer she stared, the clearer the shape became.
Two faint impressions pressed into the skin of Cameron’s neck, the edges forming a small, jagged outline – almost like the silhouette of a city skyline.
Spring’s stomach dropped, her eyes going cold.
“That’s…” she said quietly. She pointed to the image. “Mack’s pinky ring.”
Preston stared at her. “No. No way.”
Brian held up a hand. “I’m not saying anything definitive yet. But I know the coroner who signed off on the revised report.”
Spring looked up. “And?”
“And he’s been spending money he doesn’t have access to,” Brian said. “Trips. Purchases. Debts disappearing.”
Preston ran a hand through his hair. “You’re saying?—”
“I’m saying something doesn’t add up,” Brian interrupted. “And I didn’t want to say this over the phone.”
Spring’s mind was already racing – contracts, hesitations, Mack’s smile arriving a beat late, the way he’d watched the room when she’d announced her pregnancy.
“This is why it felt so wrong yesterday,” she whispered. “This was foul play.”
Brian nodded. “That was my conclusion, too.”
Silence settled between them, heavy and undeniable.
Preston finally spoke, voice low. “I’m about to walk onstage in a few hours.”
“I know,” Brian said gently. “But you needed to know this before the world gets louder. How do you want to handle this?”
Spring stepped closer to Preston, sliding her hand into his. “We’ll handle this,” she said. “Just not today.”
Brian met her eyes. “I’ll keep digging. Quietly. I won’t move unless I’m sure.”
Preston shook his head. “No, that’s bullshit, we handle this now. Cameron was one of us. If something happened to one of us Batman would be right there. No questions asked.”
Brian nodded. “Justice League, always”
The two exchanged their handshake.
As they left the clinic, the sun felt too bright, the day too ordinary.
Tonight, thousands of people would scream his name.
But something else had just begun.
. The group left to get answers and it wasn’t long before they were at the coroner’s office.
One look between Preston and Spring after they left the clinic had Brian already dialing, Rae quiet, cataloging everything.
By the time they pulled up outside the coroner’s office, the decision had made itself.
The coroner’s name was Dr. Edwin Hale. He was older, careful – the kind of man who had survived by knowing when to bend without breaking. His office smelled like antiseptic and stale coffee, walls lined with framed certifications meant to inspire trust.
They didn’t work.
Brian didn’t sit when the doctor offered them a seat. “We appreciate you making time,” Brian said, calm but direct.
The coroner folded his hands. “You said this was about the Ellison case.”
“It is.”
“That file is closed,” the man replied immediately.
“Closed doesn’t mean correct,” Brian said.
The coroner exhaled through his nose. “Doctor to doctor, there are procedures. If you have concerns, you file them formally.”
Brian slid the photo across the desk. “I was going to,” he said. “But I don’t think you want me to do that.”
The coroner looked down at the file longer than he should. “You pulled this from the report?” he asked.
“From the coroner images your office archived,” Brian replied.
“That wasn’t meant to?—”
“To what?” Brian cut in. “Be noticed?”
The man’s expression hardened. “You have to understand,” the coroner said quietly, “my job isn’t to speculate.”
“No,” Brian agreed. “Your job is to observe.”
Silence settled in the room.
Rae leaned forward slightly. “And what do you observe?”
The coroner hesitated. Then finally, “I’ve already finalized that case. There’s nothing further?—”
Rae closed the door, a soft click following.
Spring stepped forward. “You revised the report.”
Hale exhaled slowly. “Revisions happen.”
“Not like this,” Brian said. “Blunt force trauma was the original finding. You removed it.”
The doctor reached for his water bottle and took a sip.
Preston glared at him. “Why?”
Hale looked at the desk, then the wall – anywhere but them.
This sent Preston over the edge. He grabbed the man. “You might not know who I am, but if you don’t tell us what in the hell is going on, I swear you’ll never forget me.”
Brian pulled Preston away from the man, who straightened his lab coat. Finally, he sighed. “I was approached.”
Spring’s chest turned cold. “By who?”
Hale hesitated.
Brian leaned in. “Say it.”
“…Macknificent Townes,” Hale confessed quietly. “He said he found the body. Said it would be better for everyone if this didn’t become… complicated.”
Preston felt the room tilt. “He paid you.”
Hale nodded once.
“How much?” Spring asked.
“Five hundred thousand.”
The number hung in the air like a bad smell.
Spring laughed – not because it was funny, but because it didn’t compute. “That makes no sense.”
Hale looked up. “Excuse me?”
“At the time Cameron died,” Spring said, voice sharpening, “the company was hemorrhaging money. I’ve seen the financials. Where did Mack get half a million dollars?”
Hale shook his head dismissively.
Brian stepped closer now. “You realize you’re going to lose your license if you don’t talk?”
Hale’s hands started to shake. “I didn’t hurt anyone. I just signed off on what they told me to.”
Rae, who had been silent the entire time, suddenly spoke up. “Actually,” she said, holding up her tablet, “you didn’t.”
Everyone turned.
She rotated the screen. “This addendum page? The authorization signature isn’t yours.”
Hale frowned. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s not,” Rae corrected. “Because it wasn’t a medical authorization. It was a legal one.”
Spring’s stomach dropped.
Rae zooms in. “This was signed off by Rashad Ellison III. Corporate counsel. He didn’t change the medical cause – that was you. He validated the revision so it could be entered without triggering an audit.”
Hale’s face drained of color. “I didn’t know that.”
Brian exhaled sharply. “That’s conspiracy. You’re looking at some serious time if you don’t tell us what you know.”
“I just told you everything! I got paid to say it was drugs, a one-time check. I didn’t ask for any of this… I just… I needed the money.”
Preston ran a hand over his face. “So Mack paid you. Ralph made it legal. And Cameron?—”
Spring didn’t let him finish.
That was it. The last thread snapped clean.
She stepped back, already reaching for her phone. “I’m done,” she said quietly.
Brian looked at her. “Spring?—”
“My father represented Cameron,” she said. Her voice was steady, but something lethal had entered it. “And every single time something in my life stinks, my dad is standing there holding the bag. We are going to go get answers.”
Rae met her eyes. “You’re sure?”
Spring nodded. “This didn’t just happen around us. He’s guilty of something, and I need to know what it is. ”
She turned toward the door.
Preston watched her go, fear and resolve warring in his chest. “Where are you going?” he asked.
Spring didn’t turn around. “To confront my father,” she announced. “Before anyone else decides what the truth is allowed to be.”
And for the first time since the music came back, since the fame, since the love?—
She wasn’t afraid of what she was about to lose.
She was afraid of what she’d become if she stayed silent.