Chapter 5
Jackson didn’t call for three days.
Three of the longest days of my life.
I checked my phone a hundred times an hour.
I drove past the cheap motel he was staying at twice a day, too scared to go in.
I left him a dozen messages.
He never answered.
Natalie, on the other hand, didn’t stay quiet for a second.
On the third morning after the wedding, she posted a video.
Ten minutes long.
No makeup.
Hair messy.
Wearing an oversized men’s t-shirt that I recognized as one of Jackson’s old college shirts.
She sat on a hotel bed, crying so hard she could barely speak.
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” she sobbed to the camera, “but my mother-in-law has been abusing me for months. She’s a bitter, angry woman who hates that her son loves me. On our wedding day, she shaved her own head and planted a fake note to frame me. She edited security footage to make me look like a criminal. She canceled our inheritance because she’d rather see us homeless than let Jackson be happy. I’m scared. I’m so scared of what she’ll do next. Please. If anyone out there has been through this, help me. Share this. Don’t let her get away with it.”
She posted it to TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube.
It went viral.
Twelve million views in twenty-four hours.
Fifty thousand comments.
Most of them calling me a monster.
“Lock that evil old witch up!”
“How could you do that to a sweet young girl?”
“Eleanor Hale is a disgrace to her husband’s memory.”
“Jackson should get a restraining order against her.”
The local news picked it up.
Cameras showed up on my lawn by noon.
Reporters yelled questions through the fence.
“Mrs. Hale! Did you frame your daughter-in-law?”
“Mrs. Hale! Are you mentally ill?”
“Mrs. Hale! Why do you hate your son so much?”
I couldn’t leave the house.
When I tried to go to the grocery store, the cashier refused to ring up my food.
“I don’t serve abusers,” she said, loud enough for everyone in line to hear.
Old friends I’d known for forty years unfriended me on Facebook.
Some sent nasty messages.
“I always knew there was something wrong with you.”
“Frank would be ashamed.”
Judith moved in with me.
She brought her dog, her clothes, and a stack of detective novels.
She answered the door.
She yelled at the reporters.
She cooked my favorite meals.
She didn’t let me watch the news or read the comments.
“Let them talk,” she’d say, handing me a glass of wine. “They don’t know you. They don’t know the truth. We’ll fight back.”
On the fifth day, I hired a private investigator.
A retired cop named Ray.
Tough, quiet, no nonsense.
“Find out everything you can about her,” I told him. “Every secret. Every lie. Every person she’s ever hurt. I want it all.”
Three days later, he showed up at my house with a thick manila folder.
He set it on the kitchen table.
“Her real name isn’t Natalie Carter,” he said.
I frowned.
“What is it?”
“Natalie Jean Miller. Born in Akron, Ohio. 31 years old. Three aliases. Natalie Carter. Natalie Cole. Natalie Brooks.”
He slid a mugshot across the table.
Natalie, younger, no makeup, scowling at the camera.
“Five years ago, she was an office manager at a real estate firm in Chicago,” Ray said. “She embezzled $82,000 from the company over six months. Faked receipts. Wrote checks to herself. Got caught. Convicted of felony theft. Sentenced to three years probation. She skipped town six months later. Never served a day. There’s still an active warrant out for her arrest.”
I stared at the mugshot.
“Anything else?” I asked.
He nodded.
“She was married. To a guy named Greg Miller in Ohio. Construction worker. They were married for four years. She left him three years ago. Took $15,000 out of their joint bank account the day she left. Maxed out his credit cards. Left him with nothing. He’s been looking for her ever since. Filed for divorce two years ago, but he could never find her to serve the papers.”
My blood ran cold.
“Married?” I whispered.
Ray nodded.
“Still legally married. As of today. Which means her marriage to Jackson? It’s invalid. Bigamy. Felony in every state.”
I felt a surge of something I hadn’t felt in days.
Hope.
“Where is Greg now?” I asked.
“Cleveland,” Ray said. “I talked to him on the phone yesterday. He’s willing to testify. He’s got the marriage license, the bank records, the credit card bills. Everything.”
I stood up.
I grabbed my keys.
“Where are you going?” Judith asked.
“To find my son,” I said.
I drove to the motel.
I parked outside Jackson’s room.
My hands were shaking as I knocked on the door.
It took a long time.
Then the door opened a crack.
Jackson stood there.
He looked terrible.
Unshaven.
Bloodshot eyes.
Wearing the same t-shirt he’d had on for days.
The room behind him smelled like beer and regret.
“Mom?” he said, confused.
I held up the manila folder.
“I need you to see this,” I said.
He hesitated, then opened the door wider and let me in.
I sat on the edge of the bed.
I laid everything out on the small table.
The mugshot.
The embezzlement conviction.
The probation warrant.
The Ohio marriage license.
The bank records.
Jackson sat down slowly.
He read every page.
Twice.
His hands started shaking.
“I didn’t know,” he whispered. “She told me her parents died in a car crash when she was 16. She said she was an only child. She said she built her marketing company from scratch. It was all lies. All of it.”
He looked up at me, his eyes filled with tears.
“I’m so sorry, Mom,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’m so stupid. I believed her over you. I said those terrible things. I’ll never forgive myself.”
I reached out and took his hand.
“It’s okay, baby,” I said, my own eyes wet. “Grief makes us blind. She knew exactly what she was doing. She targeted you because you were hurting. She knew you’d believe anyone who made you feel less alone.”
He pulled me into a hug.
He cried into my shoulder, the way he’d cried when Frank died.
“I want to make this right,” he said. “Whatever you need. Whatever it takes. I’ll help you.”
I held him tight.
May you like
My son was back.
Natalie had no idea what was coming for her.
