Chapter 3
I ripped the speaker from the wall.
Eleanor’s laughter stopped, but her threat remained inside my head.
At sunrise, police searched the estate.
The missing guard was found unconscious in a maintenance shed. The nurse had vanished with cash, jewelry, and Leo’s medical records.
Investigators traced her car toward New York.
By eight, Daniel filed the divorce petition, an emergency protection order, and a criminal complaint.
At nine, Eleanor struck back.
Two social workers arrived with sheriff’s deputies and a court order authorizing Leo’s immediate removal from my custody.
“That is impossible,” I said.
The senior social worker handed me the papers.
Eleanor had accused me of physical abuse, emotional instability, and substance addiction.
She claimed I had returned from London in a violent state, attacked her, and forced my frightened son to repeat Maya’s lies.
Attached were medical reports showing that I had undergone psychiatric treatment.
The reports were false.
The signatures looked real.
“This is fraud,” Daniel said.
The deputy remained calm.
“You can challenge it at tomorrow’s emergency hearing.”
“My son was drugged by the woman who filed this.”
“We were told you administered the medication.”
Leo heard him.
“No!”
He ran down the stairs.
“My dad didn’t give me anything.”
The social worker crouched.
“Leo, we want to keep you safe.”
“I am safe with him.”
“Your stepmother says you’re being pressured.”
“She is lying!”
His panic grew with every word.
I moved toward him, but the deputy raised a hand.
“Mr. Blackwood, please step back.”
Leo clung to the railing.
“You can’t take me to her.”
“You won’t be placed with Mrs. Blackwood tonight,” the social worker said. “You’ll stay in a protected residence until the judge reviews the case.”
“A foster home?” I demanded.
“A temporary care facility.”
Leo looked at me.
“You promised she couldn’t take me.”
The accusation in his voice broke me.
“I will fix this.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“What if they believe her?”
Maya came down the stairs.
“Then we tell the truth again.”
The social worker recognized her name from Eleanor’s complaint.
“You’re Maya Bennett?”
“Yes.”
“You are also required to leave the property.”
“Why?”
“You’ve been accused of manipulating Leo for financial gain.”
Maya laughed once in disbelief.
“What financial gain?”
Eleanor claimed Maya and I were having an affair.
She alleged we planned to remove her, seize the trust, and control Leo’s inheritance.
It was ugly enough to sound believable.
That was Eleanor’s talent.
She built lies from pieces of truth.
Maya had protected Leo.
I had trusted her.
We had confronted Eleanor together.
Everything else was poison poured between those facts.
The deputies allowed Leo twenty minutes to pack.
I followed him upstairs.
He stood in the center of his room, staring at the shelves.
“What should I take?”
“Whatever makes you comfortable.”
“Nothing makes me comfortable.”
I opened a small suitcase.
He grabbed the stuffed lion Amelia gave him before she died.
I had not seen it in years.
“I thought you outgrew that.”
“I hid it because Eleanor called me a baby.”
He placed it carefully inside.
Then he looked at me.
“Did Mom know Eleanor?”
“No.”
“Would she hate you for marrying her?”
The question stopped me.
“Your mother didn’t hate anyone.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“She would hate what happened to you.”
“And you?”
“I hate that I failed to see it.”
Tears gathered in his eyes.
“You didn’t look.”
He was right.
I had asked whether he was fine, but I had not waited for honest answers.
I knelt before him.
“I can’t change yesterday. But I will look now. I will listen, even when it hurts.”
A deputy appeared at the door.
“It’s time.”
Leo hugged me so suddenly that I almost fell backward.
“Please don’t let them give me medicine.”
“They won’t.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
He left holding his suitcase in one hand and Maya’s hand in the other.
Maya was not permitted to go with him.
At the entrance, the social worker gently separated them.
Leo began crying.
Maya whispered something into his ear.
He nodded and climbed into the county vehicle.
I watched until it disappeared beyond the gate.
The mansion became silent.
A house that large should never have felt so small.
“What did you tell him?” I asked Maya.
“That brave people can be frightened. Bravery means telling the truth anyway.”
I looked toward the empty road.
“I should have said something like that.”
“You can tell him tomorrow.”
Daniel called us into the study.
He had discovered why the emergency order had been approved so quickly.
The judge reviewing Eleanor’s petition was Samuel Holloway.
Grant Holloway’s older brother.
“This entire process is compromised,” Daniel said. “We’ll request another judge.”
“How long?”
“Days, perhaps weeks.”
“Leo does not have weeks.”
My phone rang from an unknown number.
I answered.
A child whispered, “Dad?”
“Leo?”
“I’m in the bathroom at the care center.”
“Are you safe?”
“I heard the social worker talking. They’re moving me tonight.”
“Where?”
“To Aunt Evelyn’s house.”
Eleanor’s sister.
A woman Leo had met only twice.
“Do not go willingly,” I said. “Tell them there is a protection order against Eleanor.”
“They said it was canceled.”
Behind him, someone knocked.
“Leo?” a woman called. “Open the door.”
“Dad, they have the nurse.”
My blood froze.
“What nurse?”
“The one who gave me the pills. She’s standing outside.”
The bathroom door rattled.
Leo began breathing quickly.
“Listen to me. Lock the door and climb out the window if it is safe.”
“I’m on the first floor.”
“Go now.”
The line went silent.
I shouted his name.
No answer.
Daniel called the police while Maya grabbed her coat.
We drove toward the care center with two patrol cars behind us.
Halfway there, the police dispatcher received an alarm.
A child had escaped through a bathroom window.
Leo had disappeared into the woods behind the building.
Temperatures were falling.
May you like
Heavy snow had begun.
And the nurse who drugged him was hunting him in the dark.
