Chapter 5
Rachel screamed my name.
I already had Lily against my chest.
The house was completely dark.
Not dim.
Not flickering.
Dead.
Noah grabbed his phone and switched on the flashlight.
“Everyone stay away from the windows.”
Ethan moved toward the front room.
“No.”
I grabbed his shirt.
“Don’t go out there.”
“I’m not.”
He checked the alarm application on his phone.
“No connection.”
Rachel whispered, “The whole neighborhood?”
Noah looked through a narrow space beside the blinds.
“No.”
The house across the street had lights.
So did the next one.
Only Rachel’s house had lost power.
Someone had cut it.
Lily began to fuss.
I rocked her automatically.
“It’s okay, baby.”
But my voice shook.
Noah called 911 while Ethan checked the doors.
All locked.
Then something struck the back window.
Rachel gasped.
A second impact.
Harder.
Glass cracked.
“Upstairs,” Noah said.
We moved.
Fast.
Rachel led me to the master bedroom while Noah and Ethan stayed near the stairs.
I hated splitting up.
But I hated standing near the windows more.
Rachel locked the bedroom door.
I sat on the floor beside the bed with Lily.
Another crash sounded downstairs.
Then an alarm began screaming.
Not the house alarm.
A car alarm outside.
Rachel peeked through the bedroom blinds.
“There’s a truck.”
“What?”
“Across the street.”
“Can you see anyone?”
“No.”
Sirens sounded less than a minute later.
The truck sped away.
Police cars turned onto the street.
Only then did I breathe.
Officers found the electrical breaker box open.
The main switch had been pulled.
They also found a landscaping stone beneath the cracked kitchen window.
No fingerprints.
No note.
No intruder.
The truck’s plates had been covered.
But one officer had good news.
A neighbor’s doorbell camera caught it leaving.
The footage showed a dark Ford pickup.
One brake light was out.
Not much.
But something.
Officer Bennett arrived just before midnight.
She wasn’t assigned to the new call, but apparently our situation had already been escalated.
“We located Patricia,” she said.
“Where?”
“At a hotel near Love Field.”
My shoulders dropped.
“Then arrest her.”
Bennett’s expression told me it wasn’t that simple.
“She denies coming here.”
“Of course she does.”
“She has hotel surveillance showing her in the lobby approximately fifteen minutes before your power was cut.”
“So Marcus did it.”
“We’re trying to locate him.”
Ethan asked, “Did you talk to her about him?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“She says Marcus is harassing her too.”
I stared at Bennett.
“What?”
“Patricia claims he has been blackmailing her.”
“For what?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
Ethan laughed bitterly.
“So now she’s the victim.”
“She also claims the custody petition was Marcus’s idea.”
I felt anger rise.
“She attacked me.”
“We have the recording.”
“She threatened to take my baby.”
“We have that too.”
“Then why is she sitting in a hotel?”
Bennett kept her voice calm.
“Because investigators are separating what we can prove from what we suspect.”
I hated that answer.
But I understood it.
Patricia’s assault was on video.
Her larger plan wasn’t.
Not yet.
“What happens now?”
“We’re seeking a warrant related to the recording device found in your guest room.”
“And Marcus?”
“We’re looking.”
Bennett hesitated.
“There’s something else.”
My stomach dropped again.
She looked at Ethan.
“Your mother gave us a statement about your father’s death.”
Ethan went pale.
“What did she say?”
“She says Marcus was responsible.”
The kitchen went silent.
Ethan pulled out a chair and sat.
“How?”
“She claims your father discovered Marcus was stealing money from his business.”
“What business?”
“Your father owned part of a construction supply company.”
Ethan nodded slowly.
“I knew that.”
“Patricia says Daniel planned to report Marcus.”
I looked at Ethan.
“And then Daniel died.”
Bennett nodded.
“According to Patricia, Marcus threatened her afterward.”
Rachel crossed her arms.
“And she just happened to pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars?”
“Patricia says that was blackmail money.”
“Do you believe her?”
Bennett didn’t answer directly.
“We verify evidence.”
Ethan said, “What about the DNA test?”
“She says it’s fake.”
“Of course.”
“Ethan,” I said quietly.
He looked at me.
“Do you want to know?”
He stared at his hands.
“I don’t know.”
It was the right answer.
Because that question wasn’t about Marcus.
It was about his entire childhood.
Officer Bennett left around one in the morning.
No one slept.
Noah reset the breaker and moved a bookshelf in front of the damaged window until it could be repaired.
Rachel made coffee.
I fed Lily at 2:40 a.m.
Ethan sat on the opposite side of the guest room.
He watched me silently.
Finally he said, “You should leave me.”
I looked up.
“That’s a strange thing to say while we’re hiding from your mother.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“You shouldn’t trust me.”
“I don’t.”
He absorbed that.
I expected anger.
Instead he nodded.
“I wouldn’t either.”
Lily finished eating.
I lifted her to my shoulder.
Ethan watched.
“I signed papers without reading them.”
“Yes.”
“I let my mother convince me you were unstable.”
“Yes.”
“I told her things about you.”
My hand stopped.
“What things?”
His face tightened.
“What things, Ethan?”
“When you were pregnant, you were worried about being a good mother.”
“That’s normal.”
“I know.”
“You told her?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“You cried after your last ultrasound because you were scared something would go wrong.”
My eyes burned.
“You told her that too?”
“She asked how you were doing.”
“And you handed her every fear I trusted you with.”
“I didn’t understand what she was doing.”
“That doesn’t make it hurt less.”
He looked away.
“No.”
I laid Lily in the portable crib.
Then I sat across from him.
“Did you ever tell Patricia you thought I would hurt Lily?”
“No.”
“Did you ever think that?”
“No.”
“Not once?”
“Never.”
“Then why sign emergency custody papers?”
He looked sick.
“Because she told me the papers only took effect if a doctor declared you incapable.”
“And you didn’t read them.”
“No.”
“Why?”
He was silent.
“Why, Ethan?”
“Because I trusted my mother more than I trusted my own judgment.”
There it was.
The center of everything.
Patricia had trained him to doubt himself.
And then she had taught him to doubt me.
I leaned back.
“What did she say when you disagreed with her as a child?”
He looked confused by the question.
“Why?”
“Answer me.”
His eyes dropped.
“She would say I was remembering things wrong.”
“What else?”
“That I was emotional.”
“What else?”
“That Dad’s death made me confused.”
I felt a cold clarity.
“She did to you what she was doing to me.”
Ethan’s eyes filled.
Before he could answer, Noah knocked on the door.
“Guys.”
Something in his voice made us stand.
He held his laptop.
“I found something.”
We followed him to the dining room.
On the screen was a Texas corporate database.
Noah pointed to one business.
Carter Residential Holdings.
“Your father created this company two years before he died.”
Ethan frowned.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“It owned property.”
“What property?”
“At least four houses back then.”
Noah clicked another record.
“One of them is still active.”
The address appeared.
A house in Garland.
Ownership had transferred from Daniel’s company after his death.
To a trust.
The trust was controlled by Patricia.
Rachel asked, “What’s special about it?”
Noah clicked another tab.
Property tax records.
The mailing address for the trust was not Patricia’s home.
It was a private post office box.
Registered to Marcus Hale.
Ethan stared.
“So they still share property.”
“Looks like it.”
I leaned closer.
“Can we see who lives there?”
Noah searched the address.
A woman’s name appeared.
Samantha Hale.
Age thirty-one.
Ethan frowned.
“Marcus has a daughter?”
Noah clicked another public record.
Samantha Hale’s birth date appeared.
Then her mother’s maiden name.
Patricia Reynolds.
Patricia’s maiden name.
Nobody spoke.
Rachel looked at Ethan.
“Oh my God.”
My husband stared at the screen.
Samantha Hale wasn’t just Marcus’s daughter.
She was Patricia’s daughter.
Which meant Ethan had a sister he had never known existed.
Then my phone vibrated.
A message from Patricia.
This time there was no threat.
May you like
Only one sentence.
IF MARCUS FINDS SAMANTHA, SHE’LL DIE TOO.
