Chapter 7
I pulled away from my mother.
“You signed it?”
“Not the way she’s making it sound.”
“What way could possibly make this better?”
“Emily, please.”
“No. Explain.”
Margaret sat down.
“I signed emergency guardianship papers.”
“For Lily?”
“Yes.”
“You had never even met her.”
“I had seen her.”
My stomach turned.
“What?”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“I told you I watched from a distance.”
“How close?”
She didn’t answer quickly enough.
“How close, Mom?”
“I was at the hospital when she was born.”
I stared at her.
“You were there?”
“Across the hallway.”
“You watched me give birth and didn’t come inside?”
“I couldn’t.”
“You could.”
“I was afraid.”
“No. You chose not to.”
Aaron stepped between us.
“Emily.”
I looked at him.
“Don’t defend her.”
“I’m not. But we need to understand those papers.”
Margaret nodded.
“Rebecca contacted me six months ago.”
“You said she never contacted you.”
“I lied.”
There it was again.
Another lie.
“She said you were in danger.”
“From Ryan?”
“Yes.”
“And you believed her?”
“She showed me recordings.”
My stomach dropped.
“What recordings?”
“You screaming. Breaking things.”
I remembered one night when Ryan had deliberately locked me out while Lily cried inside.
I had screamed.
Another night he had hidden my car keys before an important medical appointment.
I had thrown a coffee mug into the sink.
Every moment had been designed.
“They edited them,” I said.
“I understand that now.”
“But you signed.”
“Rebecca said the papers would only activate if you died.”
I went still.
“If I died?”
“Yes.”
I looked at Detective Martinez.
“What exactly did she sign?”
He took the document from the evidence folder.
His eyes moved over it.
“This isn’t only emergency guardianship.”
Margaret leaned forward.
“What?”
“It authorizes temporary control after incapacity, detention, psychiatric commitment, or death.”
My mother went pale.
“I never agreed to that.”
“Your signature is here.”
“I didn’t read everything.”
I laughed without humor.
“Of course you didn’t.”
“Emily—”
“Everyone keeps signing away my daughter’s life without reading.”
Margaret started crying.
I felt nothing.
Or maybe I felt too much.
Martinez continued.
“If Emily had been arrested after an altercation with Ryan and Diane, this could have been used immediately.”
That was their plan.
Provoke me.
Get me arrested.
Use Margaret.
Take Lily.
Then control the trust before her third birthday.
Rebecca hadn’t chosen my mother randomly.
She had spent years finding every weak point in my family.
“Where is Rebecca now?” I asked.
“Still missing.”
“And Thomas?”
“Also missing.”
A detective entered.
He handed Martinez a note.
Martinez frowned.
“What?”
“They found Rebecca’s car.”
“Where?”
“Near an old industrial property.”
“Thomas’s?”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“Your father’s.”
The property was a warehouse my father had owned years ago.
I barely remembered it.
Police searched it that afternoon.
Inside they found empty offices.
Old records.
A hidden room.
And blood.
Not enough to know whose.
But enough to turn the investigation into something darker.
They also found the missing flash drive.
Broken.
Someone had smashed it.
Fortunately, the internal memory chip might still be recoverable.
That evening, I took Lily to a secure location arranged by police.
Aaron came with us.
Margaret was not invited.
She didn’t argue.
Before I left, she touched my arm.
“I know you hate me.”
“I don’t know you well enough to hate you.”
The words hurt her.
I didn’t take them back.
At the secure apartment, Lily climbed onto my lap.
“Home?”
“Soon, baby.”
“Daddy?”
I froze.
She still loved Ryan.
Of course she did.
She was two.
Children didn’t understand betrayal.
They only understood absence.
“Daddy can’t come right now.”
She looked down.
“Grandma mean.”
I kissed her hair.
“Yes.”
Then Lily whispered something unexpected.
“Other Grandpa nice.”
I stopped breathing.
“What did you say?”
“Grandpa.”
“Which Grandpa?”
She pointed toward the door.
“Grandpa gave candy.”
Aaron and I exchanged a look.
“Lily,” I whispered, “when?”
“Grandma house.”
“What grandma?”
“Grandma Diane.”
My pulse raced.
“Was Grandpa old?”
She nodded.
“Did Daddy see him?”
Lily shook her head.
“No Daddy.”
Thomas.
Diane had taken Lily to see Thomas.
My daughter had already met the supposedly dead man.
“How many times?”
Lily held up three fingers.
Probably not an accurate count.
But enough.
Then she said something else.
“Grandpa take picture.”
“What picture?”
“Mommy sleeping.”
Every hair on my arms rose.
Aaron immediately called Martinez.
Police searched Diane’s home that night.
They found a locked cabinet in the basement.
Inside were hundreds of photographs.
Me going to work.
Me sleeping.
Lily at daycare.
Aaron outside his house.
Margaret at a grocery store.
My father before his death.
And one photograph taken through my bedroom window only three nights earlier.
May you like
On the back, someone had written:
Emily Bennett — final week.
