Chapter 6
I stared at the text.
My blood turned to slush in my veins.
He was here.
Daniel was here.
Watching us.
I spun around, scanning the dark parking lot.
Empty cars.
Deep shadows.
Nothing moved.
“Where is he?” I whispered.
Lisa grabbed my arm.
“Get in the car. Now. Lock the doors.”
We ran to my car.
I fumbled with the keys, dropping them again.
“Hurry, Sarah!”
I got them in the lock and wrenched the door open.
We both threw ourselves inside and slammed the doors.
I hit the lock button so hard my thumb hurt.
All four locks clicked down at once.
“Did you see him?” I asked, scanning the mirrors.
“Nothing. But he saw us. He took that picture from somewhere. Maybe the building across the street. Maybe he was sitting in his car with the lights off.”
My hands were shaking too badly to start the ignition.
“Why didn’t he confront us? Why just send a text?”
“Because he knows we have the upper hand now. We have the papers. He’s trying to scare you into giving them back.”
“It’s working.”
I finally got the car started.
The engine roared.
I didn’t turn on the headlights.
Not yet.
I wanted to see him before he saw me.
“Call Ethan,” I said.
Lisa pulled out her phone and dialed.
He answered on the first ring.
“Lisa? Where’s Mom? Is she okay?”
“Hey, buddy. We’re fine. We’re at the office, just leaving. You okay at the house by yourself?”
“I’m fine. I locked everything. All the doors, all the windows. I pushed the couch against the front door just in case.”
Good boy.
My brave, smart boy.
“Perfect,” Lisa said. “We’re on our way. Twenty minutes. Don’t open the door for anyone, okay? Not even the pizza delivery guy. Not even the police. Only us.”
“Okay. Lisa?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Dad… is Dad going to hurt us?”
The question hung in the air.
Lisa looked at me.
I nodded.
Tell him the truth.
“Your dad is very angry right now,” she said carefully. “And he’s made some very bad choices. But we’re not going to let anything happen to you or your mom. I promise. We’re all going to stick together.”
“Okay. Hurry home.”
“We will.”
She hung up.
“Let’s go,” I said.
I flipped on the headlights and peeled out of the parking spot.
I watched the rearview mirror the entire drive home.
No one followed us.
At least, no one I could see.
But the feeling of being watched never went away.
When we pulled into the driveway, the house was dark except for Ethan’s bedroom light.
I called him before we even got out of the car.
“It’s us, baby. We’re outside. Come unlock the door.”
We waited on the porch.
I could hear the couch scraping back from inside.
Then the locks turning.
One.
Two.
Three.
Ethan opened the door just a crack.
When he saw it was really us, he threw it open and hugged us both at once.
“I was so scared. I thought maybe he’d come here while you were gone.”
“He didn’t,” I said, kissing his forehead. “We’re all here. We’re all safe.”
We went inside and locked everything back up.
I turned on every light in the house.
Every lamp.
Every overhead.
I wanted it to look like daytime.
Darkness was the enemy now.
We sat at the kitchen table.
I spread all the papers out in front of Ethan.
The transfer documents.
The power of attorney.
The bank statements.
The emails.
The sonogram.
He looked at each one carefully.
His face was still that same blank mask.
No tears.
No anger.
Just… nothing.
When he finished, he pushed the sonogram away like it was contaminated.
“So he’s been stealing for six years,” he said. His voice was flat. “And lying to you for two years about her. And he was going to leave us with nothing.”
“Yes,” I said. “But we have proof now. All of this. And your videos. Tomorrow morning, first thing, I’m calling a lawyer. We’re going to fight him. For everything.”
Ethan was quiet for a long time.
He traced the edge of the table with his finger.
“Mom?”
“Yes, baby?”
“When you go to court… are they going to make me talk? About what I saw? About the videos?”
My heart broke.
I’d been dreading this question.
“I don’t know. Maybe. But only if you want to. And I’ll be right there with you the whole time. And Lisa. And the lawyer. Nobody is going to let him hurt you.”
“What if he says I’m lying? Like he said he was going to? What if nobody believes me?”
“They’ll believe you, Ethan. You have the videos. You have the recordings. You have all the proof anyone could ever need.”
He looked up at me.
His eyes were finally wet.
“I used to want to be just like him,” he whispered. “I thought he was the best dad in the whole world. And all this time… he was just… this.”
He gestured at the papers spread between us.
“I know, baby. I know. And I am so, so sorry. I should have seen it. I should have known.”
“It’s not your fault, Mom. He fooled you too. He fooled everyone.”
He stood up and walked around the table.
He hugged me again.
This time tighter.
“But we have each other,” he said into my shoulder. “And Lisa. And we’re going to beat him. Right?”
“Right,” I said, holding him. “We’re going to beat him so bad he’ll wish he’d never been born.”
Lisa stood up.
“Okay. Battle plan. Tomorrow morning, eight o’clock sharp, I’m calling Margaret Hollis.”
“Margaret Hollis? The divorce lawyer?”
“The very same. She’s the shark of sharks. She once got a woman seventy percent of her husband’s assets plus full custody plus his dog. And the dog wasn’t even hers originally. If anyone can take Daniel down, it’s her.”
“Call her now,” I said. “Leave a message. Tell her it’s an emergency. Tell her we have seven hundred and eighty thousand reasons she needs to take this case.”
Lisa went into the other room to make the call.
Ethan and I were alone at the table.
He picked up the sonogram again.
Stared at it.
“A baby sister,” he said. “Or maybe a brother. I always wanted a sibling.”
My throat tightened.
“I know, baby.”
“Do you think… does she know what he’s doing? Lila? Does she know he’s stealing all our money?”
“I think she knows enough. She was there. She asked about the papers. She asked about the account. She’s not innocent in this, Ethan.”
He nodded slowly.
He put the sonogram down.
“Mom? I have something else to tell you. Something I didn’t put in the videos.”
I leaned forward.
“What is it?”
“Three weeks ago. The night before you signed those papers. I woke up at like two in the morning to get a drink of water. Dad was in the kitchen. He was on the phone. I think he thought I was asleep.”
“Who was he talking to?”
“I don’t know. Some guy. He kept saying things like ‘the signature is tomorrow’ and ‘make sure the account is ready to receive.’ And then he said something that really scared me.”
“What, baby? What did he say?”
Ethan took a deep breath.
“He said, ‘Sarah signs tomorrow, and by the end of the month, she’s out of the picture permanently.’”
I froze.
“Permanently?”
“That’s what he said. I didn’t know what it meant then. I thought he just meant the divorce. But now… Mom, what if he meant something worse?”
The room suddenly felt ten degrees colder.
I thought about the text from the parking lot.
*“Now I have to do things the hard way.”*
What was Daniel capable of?
We already knew he was a thief.
A liar.
A cheater.
A man who would destroy his own family for money and a younger woman.
What wouldn’t he do?
“I don’t think he meant that, baby,” I said, though my voice wasn’t nearly as convincing as I wanted it to be. “I think he just meant the divorce.”
But Ethan was already shaking his head.
“No, Mom. The way he said it. It was cold. Like he was talking about… I don’t know. Like he was planning something. And then tonight, in the parking lot. He was watching us. What if he’s planning something now?”
Lisa came back into the room.
She saw our faces.
“What happened? What’s wrong now?”
I looked at Ethan.
He nodded.
Go ahead.
Tell her.
“Daniel said something three weeks ago,” I told her. “To someone on the phone. He said that after I signed the papers, I’d be ‘out of the picture permanently.’”
Lisa’s face went ashen.
“Oh my God.”
“Ethan thinks he might have meant… something other than divorce.”
Lisa didn’t hesitate.
May you like
She pulled out her phone again.
“Then we’re not just calling a lawyer tomorrow. We’re calling the police. Tonight.”
