Chapter 4
I locked every door twice.
Then I checked every window.
Peter stood in the hallway with a kitchen knife because none of us had thought to feel ridiculous yet.
Mom sat on the couch with a blanket around her shoulders, staring at the photo on her phone.
“That was last week,” she whispered.
I looked at the image again.
Her bedroom.
Her lamp.
Her hand resting near her face.
Someone had been inside.
Someone had watched her sleep.
“Marcus took this?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“He was out of town.”
My pulse went cold.
“Then who?”
Peter came back from the laundry room.
“Basement window latch is broken.”
Mom covered her mouth.
“I thought it was the wind.”
I wanted to punch the wall.
Not because it would help.
Because my body needed something to break besides me.
Officer Ramirez returned after I called again.
This time she brought detectives.
They took the phone.
They dusted the window.
They asked Mom questions she answered in a voice so flat it scared me.
How long had Marcus lived here?
Eight months.
How long had he threatened her?
Almost three years.
Had he hit her before?
She paused.
Then nodded.
My throat closed.
“How many times?” the detective asked.
Mom looked down.
“I stopped counting.”
I walked out before I made a sound I couldn’t take back.
In the driveway, Peter stood beside me.
I kept my fists pressed against my eyes.
“I was in Chicago. I called every Sunday. She said she was fine.”
“She wanted you to have your life.”
“She was supposed to be my life too.”
Peter didn’t answer.
Because there was no answer kind enough.
A black sedan pulled up.
A woman in a navy coat stepped out.
She introduced herself as Assistant District Attorney Laura Kim.
Marcus had not even been processed, and already the case had grown teeth.
“We need to talk about your father,” she said.
Mom came onto the porch when she heard.
Her face went white.
Laura opened a folder.
“Two months ago, our office reopened a file connected to the Hale warehouse fire. Your father’s name is in it, Daniel.”
I grabbed the railing.
“How?”
“A retired arson investigator came forward. He claimed the original report was altered.”
Peter whispered, “Thank God.”
Mom began shaking.
Laura looked at her.
“Mrs. Carter, did Marcus Reed threaten you because of documents connected to that fire?”
Mom nodded.
“Do you still have anything he gave you?”
“No. He kept everything.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
The detective stepped forward.
“We searched his apartment after a probation violation last year. Nothing.”
I stared at Mom.
“Probation?”
She closed her eyes.
“I didn’t know at first.”
“At first?”
“He said it was old. He said people judged him. He said I was the only person who understood being blamed for one mistake.”
I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice.
“And you believed him.”
She looked at me.
“I wanted to.”
That honesty hit me harder than another lie.
Laura’s phone rang.
She stepped away, listened, then turned back.
“They found a storage unit key in Marcus Reed’s wallet.”
Marcus had been arrested less than two hours earlier.
Already the walls around him were moving.
“Can we go?” I asked.
“No,” Laura said. “Police will execute the search.”
“I need to see it.”
“You need to let us do this correctly.”
I hated her calm voice because she was right.
Mom stood.
“I’ll go.”
“No,” I said.
She looked at me.
“I hid for twelve years. I am done hiding.”
The words were brave.
Her body was not.
She swayed as she said them.
I caught her before she fell.
At the hospital, the doctor said her blood pressure was dangerously high.
Stress.
Fear.
Years of swallowing both until they became poison.
I sat beside her bed while Peter made calls in the hall.
Mom stared at the ceiling.
“I thought you would hate me forever.”
“I’m still angry.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know how to forgive you.”
“I know that too.”
Silence settled between us.
Not peaceful.
But honest.
She turned her head.
“When your father died, everyone called me brave. They brought casseroles. They said I was strong. I wanted to scream. I wasn’t strong. I was terrified. And then Marcus appeared years later and told me he knew what I had done.”
“You were manipulated.”
“I was also wrong.”
I looked at her.
She met my eyes.
“For burning those files. For keeping secrets. For letting him near me. For letting him make you feel unwanted.”
My chest hurt.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I thought if you knew, you would stop loving your father.”
I frowned.
“Why would I?”
“Because he asked me for help and I failed him.”
I swallowed.
“Mom, Dad died because criminals set a fire.”
Her lips trembled.
“But I left him alone.”
I reached for her hand before I could talk myself out of it.
She gripped my fingers like she was afraid I would vanish.
Then Laura Kim walked in.
Her expression was grim.
“They opened the storage unit.”
I stood.
“What did they find?”
She looked at Mom.
“Files. Photos. Copies of the confession.”
Then she looked back at me.
“And your father’s watch box.”
My blood chilled.
“The watch box?”
May you like
Laura nodded.
“There was a recording hidden inside it.”
