My daughter cut the cars brake lines, When the car skidded off the cliff, we survived only because it got caught on a lone tree

The gravel in the driveway crackled under speeding tires, a sound that once meant Emily was home for dinner. Now it meant trouble. Sarah stood at the kitchen window, fingers shaking around her coffee mug as the red sedan jerked to a stop. Emily climbed out—frail, frantic, eyes darting like she was always on the edge of flight. And, as always, her husband Mark sat in the passenger seat, sunglasses on, thumbs tapping his phone with vulture-like detachment. Sarah had begged Emily not to marry him. She’d been ignored.

“She’s back, Tom,” Sarah whispered.

Tom lowered his newspaper. His face had aged decades in a single year. “I’ll handle it. Stay here.”

Emily didn’t knock. She didn’t greet them. She stormed inside and demanded her father immediately.

“Dad! Please—it’s life or death!”

Tom’s jaw clenched. “Study. Now.” The office door slammed, and Sarah hovered in the hallway, listening to muffled pleading, shouting, and then a violent crash that made her flinch. Moments later, Emily burst out, face twisted into something feral and hateful. She didn’t look at Sarah. She walked straight out the front door without a word.

Tom emerged pale, trembling, straightening his tie with shaking hands. A shattered lamp lay on the floor behind him.

“It’s done,” he said. “She won’t be bothering us again.”

“What did you do?”

“I protected us,” he muttered. “Let’s get out. Let’s go for a drive. I need air.”

They took the canyon road toward the Ridge, sunlight spilling gold across the cliffs. The silence in the car grew heavier as they approached Devil’s Elbow, a notorious hairpin curve above a sheer drop. Tom pressed the brake.

Nothing.

He pressed again—hard. The pedal hit the floor, dead and hollow.

“Tom?” Sarah whispered.

“The brakes,” he choked. “Sarah, the brakes are gone!”

The car accelerated, tires squealing as Tom fought the wheel. The guardrail rushed toward them at terrifying speed. Metal shrieked. Glass exploded. The world flipped.

When Sarah opened her eyes, the air smelled of gasoline and wet leaves. Pain tore through her body. The car hung suspended in the branches of a massive oak rooted in the cliffside. Below them, a hundred-foot drop.

“Sarah…” Tom’s voice was barely a breath. Blood covered his forehead. His leg was twisted grotesquely, pinned against the dashboard.

“I’m here,” she murmured.

“Don’t move.” His grip tightened on her hand. “Listen.”

Above them came frantic screams.

“Oh my God! Help! Someone help! My parents went over! Please, somebody!”

Emily.

Relief surged through Sarah. She opened her mouth to call back.

Tom clamped his hand over her lips. His eyes were wide with terror.

“Pretend to be dead,” he whispered. “Don’t make a sound.”

Sarah froze.

Above them, Emily’s screams cut off abruptly. Silence. Then the unmistakable click of a phone call ending.

A second later, her voice floated down again—this time calm, icy, terrifyingly composed.

“It’s done, Mark. They went over at full speed. From this height, they’re dead. The car’s smashed. The brake cuts were clean—no one will question it at first. By the time they find anything, we’ll have the money.”

Sarah felt her chest crack open from the inside. The pain in her body vanished beneath something colder. Her daughter had tried to kill them. Had planned it. Had stood on the cliff edge to make sure the job was done.

Tom’s tears slid silently down his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “This is my fault. I pushed her too hard.”

“You refused to fund their gambling,” Sarah whispered back. “That’s not murder.”

“It wasn’t that. In the study… I gave her an ultimatum.” His voice trembled. “I told her if she was still married to that parasite by tomorrow at 9 AM, I was rewriting my will. Everything would go to charity. She’d get nothing.”

Sarah stared at him. “Tom…”

“She did it today so she could kill us before the deadline. She cut the brake lines to stop us from changing the will.”

A cruel, perfect logic. Emily hadn’t panicked. She’d scheduled their deaths.

Sirens finally wailed from above. Ropes dropped past the shattered windshield. A firefighter peered inside.

“I’ve got movement! Two survivors!”

Sarah grabbed him weakly. “Listen. My daughter did this. She thinks we’re dead. If she sees us alive—”

Tom rasped, “She’ll run. Or worse.”

The firefighter nodded. “Code Silent,” he radioed. “Cover their faces.”

They were extracted under blankets and masks, looking like bodies. As they reached the road, Emily’s wails pierced the air—wild, dramatic, frantic enough to fool strangers.

“Mom! Dad! Let me see them! Please!”

Sarah lay still, every cell screaming.

At the hospital, Emily paced the waiting room with Mark glued to her side, whispering urgently. “We need to call the lawyer. We have to handle the estate before anything delays the transfer.”

The double doors opened.

Not a doctor. The Police Chief.

Behind him, rolling slowly in wheelchairs—

Sarah and Tom.

Alive.

Emily’s face went bloodless. Her mouth opened in a small, strangled squeak.

“Mom? Dad? You’re… alive?”

“Disappointed?” Tom asked.

The Chief stepped forward. “Emily Henderson, you are under arrest for two counts of attempted first-degree murder.”

Mark immediately shoved her toward the officers.

“It wasn’t me! She’s insane! She threatened me! She planned it all! I’ll testify against her!”

Emily staggered, betrayed, horrified. “Mark? You—”

He backed away, hands up. A coward to the core.

“You don’t understand!” Emily screamed as officers grabbed her. “Dad, you were going to cut me off! I had to do it! I needed the money!”

Tom reached into his bloodstained jacket with shaking fingers and pulled out a folded, smeared piece of paper. He tossed it at her feet.

A cashier’s check.

Half a million dollars.

“I went to the bank this morning,” he said quietly. “I liquidated my retirement. I got this for you. Enough to pay off Mark’s debts. Enough to free you.”

Emily stared at the check, hands cuffed behind her back, tears spilling for the first time out of pure devastation.

“You didn’t have to kill us,” Sarah whispered. “You already had what you wanted.”

Emily collapsed, sobbing, as officers dragged her away. Mark was cuffed moments later.

Sarah and Tom sat side by side in their wheelchairs, shattered but alive.

They had survived the fall.

But their daughter was gone long before the brakes ever failed.