Chapter 5
My apartment was on the second floor of an old brick building in East Nashville.
The street was quiet when we pulled up.
Too quiet.
“Wait here,” I told Sarah.
I got out and scanned the sidewalk.
No news vans.
No strange cars.
But the front door was propped open an inch.
I always locked it.
Always.
I gestured for Sarah to stay in the car and pulled the small tactical flashlight I kept in my jacket pocket.
I moved up the steps silently.
Pushed the door open.
The hallway was dark.
My apartment door was at the end.
Also open.
I could hear movement inside.
Glass clinking.
Drawers opening and closing.
Someone was going through my things.
I flattened myself against the wall beside the doorframe.
Counted to three.
And burst in.
“FREEZE!”
The figure standing by my couch yelped and dropped a framed photo.
It shattered on the hardwood.
“Whoa, whoa—easy, tiger! It’s just me!”
I flicked on the light.
Marcus.
My oldest friend.
Former Army.
Currently between jobs, which meant he had way too much free time.
He was holding my PlayStation controller in one hand and a beer in the other.
“Marcus? What the hell are you doing in my apartment?”
“You texted me an hour ago. Said ‘come over, bring beer, emergency.’”
“I didn’t text you anything.”
He pulled out his phone and showed me the screen.
Sure enough.
A text from my number.
Sent at 10:14 PM.
Exactly when I was being processed at the police station.
Jake.
“He sent it,” I said. “He wanted you here. Or someone else. If you’d been a stranger walking in on a burglary, you would’ve called the cops. And they would’ve found you here with my stuff everywhere. Another arrest. More ‘proof’ I’m unstable.”
Marcus set down the controller.
His expression changed.
The goofy grin vanished.
Replaced by the guy I’d served with.
The one who’d watched my back in three different countries.
“Who’s ‘he’?”
I explained everything.
The truck.
Max.
Lily in the ditch.
Jake’s performance for the cameras.
The hacked Instagram.
The fake text.
Sarah came in halfway through.
She stood in the doorway, watching Marcus process it all.
When I finished, he let out a long, low whistle.
“This guy’s a real piece of work.”
“Tell me about it,” Sarah said.
Marcus looked at her.
Then at me.
“So what’s the play?”
“The play is we beat him at his own game. He’s got money. He’s got connections. He’s got the whole state thinking I’m a monster. But he’s made one mistake.”
“What’s that?”
“He thinks I’m just a regular guy. That I’ll roll over and let him steamroll me. He doesn’t know about you.”
Marcus smiled.
It was not a nice smile.
“I do love being the secret weapon.”
He pulled out his laptop and set it on my kitchen table.
“Here’s what we know so far. Jake Carter. Thirty-four. Vice president of acquisitions at Carter Development. Daddy’s company. Net worth of the family—about forty million. Married Sarah in 2016. Lily born 2018. Separated 2021. The divorce has been dragging on ever since.”
“How do you know all this?” Sarah asked.
“Public records, honey. Plus I’ve got a buddy in the county clerk’s office who owes me a favor from back in ‘19. I started digging the second you called me from the police station, Ethan. Figured you’d need it.”
He tapped the keyboard.
“Now for the fun stuff. Jake’s personal finances are a mess. Trust fund kid who never learned the value of a dollar. Blew through two million of his own money in the last four years. Bad investments. Worse habits.”
“What kind of habits?” Sarah asked.
Marcus looked up.
“Gambling. High-stakes poker games at a private club out in Franklin. He’s down about eight hundred thousand since January.”
Sarah sat down hard.
“He never told me that.”
“Of course he didn’t. That’s why he needs Lily’s trust fund. Five hundred thousand would cover most of his debts. Buy him enough time to run up some more.”
He tapped again.
“And here’s the kicker. Six months ago, he took out a life insurance policy on Lily. One and a half million dollars.”
The room went cold.
Sarah’s face went from pale to gray.
“Excuse me?”
“Standard child rider on his own policy. Common enough. But the timing? Right after the judge awarded him unsupervised visitation? And right before he started ramping up the custody battle?”
Marcus leaned back in the chair.
“Your ex-husband isn’t just trying to steal from his daughter, Mrs. Carter. He’s planning for what happens if the custody thing doesn’t work out.”
I thought of Lily in the ditch.
How still she’d been.
How easy it would’ve been for Jake to leave her there.
To say she’d wandered off and gotten lost.
To collect.
“Oh my God,” Sarah whispered. “He was going to kill her.”
“Maybe not today,” Marcus said gently. “But eventually. When the time was right. When he could make it look like an accident. Or a kidnapping by a stranger. A stranger exactly like Ethan.”
I walked to the window.
The street was still empty.
But it felt like Jake was out there somewhere.
Watching.
“Marcus—what else do you have on him?”
“His new girlfriend. Megan Price. Twenty-nine. Works at the Department of Children’s Services. Ring any bells?”
Sarah’s head snapped up.
“Megan Price? She’s the social worker on our case.”
“Yep. Assigned eighteen months ago. Every single one of her reports has recommended increasing Jake’s visitation. Every. Single. One.”
I turned from the window.
“She’s on his payroll.”
“Or in his bed. Or both. Phone records show they talk at least three times a day. Always from blocked numbers, but my buddy at the phone company could trace the towers. They’re together at least two nights a week. At Jake’s lake house. The one he claims he hasn’t visited in a year during custody proceedings.”
Marcus pulled up a photo.
Megan Price.
Blonde.
Pretty.
Professional blazer.
Warm, trustworthy smile.
The kind of woman judges and juries believed.
“She’s the key,” I said. “If Jake’s been bribing her… if we can prove it… everything falls apart. The custody ruling. the police reports. his credibility. All of it.”
Sarah stood up.
Her hands were clenched.
The fear was gone from her face.
Replaced by something harder.
Colder.
“I want him,” she said. “I want both of them. I want everything they’ve done to come back on them. I want them to lose everything. Their jobs. Their money. Their freedom. I want them to feel what Lily and I have felt for three years.”
Marcus looked at me.
I nodded.
“Then let’s get to work,” I said.
Marcus closed his laptop.
“First light, I’m heading out to that lake house. See what our lovebirds have been up to. Ethan—you’re with me. Sarah—you need to go back to the hospital. Stay with Lily. And whatever you do—do not answer any calls from numbers you don’t recognize. And do not, under any circumstances, let Jake get within a hundred feet of that little girl.”
Sarah nodded.
“Where will you be tomorrow?”
“At the precinct at nine AM. Lily’s official statement. I’ll be there. And then… we start fighting fire with fire.”
I walked her to the door.
She paused on the threshold.
“Ethan?”
“Yeah?”
“When this is over… whatever happens… Lily and I—we owe you everything.”
“You don’t owe me anything. Saving her was the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”
She gave me a small, genuine smile.
The first real one I’d seen from her.
“For the record,” she said. “I think you’re wrong about not being a hero.”
She got in her car and drove away.
I closed the door and locked it.
Twice.
May you like
Marcus was already repacking his gear.
“Eight AM tomorrow,” he said. “Wear something comfortable. And bring your running shoes. Something tells me we’re going to need them.”
