Chapter 5
The paperweight hit the wall right next to Ryan’s head.
Glass shattered everywhere.
Ryan stumbled back, his face white.
“Are you insane?”
Sarah grabbed my arm and pulled me back.
“Emily, no! Don’t do this!”
I was breathing hard.
The paperweight had slipped in my hand at the last second.
If it hadn’t…
I looked at the hole in the drywall.
At the glass scattered across the floor.
Ryan stared at me, his eyes wide.
For the first time all day, he looked scared.
Good.
“You want to talk about unfit parents?” I said, my voice shaking. “That was me almost becoming one. Because of you. Because you took my son.”
Ryan recovered first.
He pointed at the wall.
“This is perfect. Do you know how perfect this is? My lawyer is going to love this. Violent outburst. Destruction of property. In front of a witness. You just handed me full custody on a silver platter.”
“Then call your lawyer,” I said. “Because I’m calling mine. And when she’s done with you, you’ll be lucky if you get to see Noah through a glass window.”
I turned and walked out the front door.
Sarah followed me.
“Where are we going?”
“To my place,” she said. “You’re not staying here another night. And tomorrow morning, we go see Maria. We fight back.”
I slept at Sarah’s house that night.
I didn’t sleep at all, really.
I just lay on her couch, staring at the ceiling, replaying every moment of the last twenty-four hours.
At seven in the morning, Sarah made me coffee.
I couldn’t drink it.
At eight-thirty, we drove to Maria Gonzalez’s office.
She was in her late forties, with dark hair pulled back in a tight bun and red lipstick that looked like it could cut glass.
Her office was lined with law books and framed photos of her kids.
She didn’t waste any time.
“Tell me everything,” she said. “From the beginning. And don’t leave anything out. Even if it makes you look bad. Especially if it makes you look bad.”
I told her everything.
The night I came home late.
The fight.
The forged paper.
The divorce drafts I’d found in Ryan’s office.
The counselor appointment.
The airport.
The paperweight.
She took notes, her pen flying across the pad.
When I finished, she leaned back in her chair.
“Okay. Here’s where we stand. Ryan has three things going for him. One: the forged custody paper, which on its face looks legal. Two: he’s been documenting your drinking and absences for months. Three: you threw a heavy object at him last night. That’s domestic violence, Emily. Even if you missed. Judges hate that.”
I felt sick.
“So I’m going to lose him?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it. Here’s what we have going for us. One: we can prove the signature is forged. I have a forensic document analyst I work with. He’s the best in the state. Two: Ryan’s little airport trick? That’s parental abduction. Even with a signed paper, removing a child from the state without the other parent’s explicit, recent consent is a huge red flag. Three: Ryan planned this. The drafts, the neighbor as a witness, the timing of his mom’s visit— this was premeditated. Premeditation in custody cases looks really, really bad. It shows he’s not acting in the child’s best interest. He’s acting to win.”
She leaned forward.
“Here’s the plan. Today, I file for an emergency ex parte custody order. I argue that Ryan is a flight risk and that Noah is in imminent danger of being permanently relocated. If the judge grants it, we send the order to Tennessee. The local police there will pick Noah up and put him on a plane back here.”
“Can they do that?”
“They can. But it’s not fast. It could take three days. It could take a week. In the meantime, I’m also filing for a temporary restraining order against Ryan. No contact with you. No contact with Noah until the hearing. And I’m filing for divorce. Full stop. No more counseling. No more trying to fix it. This is war now, Emily. And in war, you don’t negotiate with the enemy. You destroy him.”
I nodded.
“Whatever it takes.”
“Good. Now— there’s one more thing. I need to know everything about Ryan’s finances. Bank accounts, retirement, bonuses, debts. Everything. In divorce cases, money is usually the real motive. And something tells me Ryan isn’t just doing this because he’s a great dad.”
That stopped me.
“What do you mean?”
“Men like your husband— they don’t spend months planning a custody battle just because their wife has a few drinks with friends. There’s something else. Another woman. Hidden money. Something he doesn’t want you to find. And taking Noah gives him all the power. It keeps you distracted. It makes you look like the bad guy. It gives him leverage in the divorce.”
I thought about Ryan’s locked office.
About all the late nights.
The secret phone calls.
“His office is always locked,” I said. “I found the divorce papers there once, but I didn’t have time to look at everything. He has bank statements, credit card bills… all of it.”
Maria smiled.
It was not a nice smile.
“Perfect. Sarah— you said you still have a key to Emily and Ryan’s house?”
Sarah nodded.
“I’ve had it since they moved in. For emergencies.”
“Great. Today, while Ryan is at work, the two of you are going back to that house. You’re going to get every financial document you can find. Every bank statement, every credit card bill, every receipt. You take pictures of everything. And you leave nothing that could be traced back to you. If Ryan asks, you were never there. Understood?”
We both nodded.
“One more thing,” Maria said. “Emily— the drinking. It stops today. Not because Ryan is right. But because if you so much as have a glass of wine with dinner between now and the trial, his lawyer will rip you apart. You need to be perfect. Boring, predictable, perfect. Can you do that?”
“I haven’t had a drink since the night before last,” I said. “And I won’t touch another drop until Noah is home safe.”
“Good. Now go. Get those documents. And call me the second you have something.”
We left Maria’s office and drove back to my house.
Ryan’s car was gone.
We used Sarah’s key and went in.
The house felt empty without Noah.
His dinosaur was still on the coffee table.
I picked it up and held it to my chest.
“Come on,” Sarah said gently. “Let’s get this over with.”
We went to Ryan’s office.
The door was locked again.
But I knew where the key was.
We opened it and started going through everything.
Drawers, files, the computer.
We took pictures of every bank statement, every bill, every email.
And then, in the back of the bottom drawer, under the divorce file, I found another folder.
This one was unlabeled.
I opened it.
Inside were credit card statements from an account I’d never seen before.
An account in Ryan’s name only.
I looked at the charges.
Thousands of dollars.
Jewelry.
Hotel rooms.
Flowers.
And a name that kept appearing over and over.
Ashley Bennett.
Five hundred dollars at a jewelry store.
Twelve hundred at a downtown hotel.
Three hundred at a fancy restaurant.
All charged to Ryan’s secret card.
All on nights he’d told me he was working late.
Sarah looked over my shoulder.
“Son of a bitch.”
It wasn’t just about custody.
It wasn’t just about winning an argument.
Ryan had a girlfriend.
And he’d been planning to leave me for her.
But if he’d just filed for divorce like a normal person, I would’ve gotten half of everything.
Alimony.
Child support.
Half the house.
Half his retirement.
So he’d come up with a better plan.
Destroy my reputation first.
Paint me as an unfit, alcoholic mother.
Take Noah.
Take everything.
And walk away clean with his new girlfriend.
I stared at the statements.
And for the first time since this started, I didn’t feel scared.
I didn’t feel sad.
I felt absolutely, ice-cold calm.
May you like
Because now I had him.
“Sarah,” I said. “Call Maria. Tell her we found the motive.”
