Chapter 6 - The Second Phone
Olivia’s lawyer ended the conversation immediately.
No more questions. No explanations. No private discussion between husband and wife.
Daniel watched Olivia walk away from him as if twelve years of marriage had been reduced to the distance between two elevator doors.
Back home, the house felt poisoned by silence.
Ethan refused to sleep alone, so Daniel made a bed for him on the couch in the study. Around midnight, the boy finally drifted off clutching the stuffed fox Margaret had given him.
Daniel sat at his desk and replayed every strange moment from the past year.
Olivia insisting on handling household accounts.
Olivia asking why Margaret still controlled part of the family trust.
Olivia getting angry when Daniel suggested adding his mother as a second reviewer on large transfers.
He had called it stress.
He had called it privacy.
He had called it marriage.
At 1:17 a.m., Ethan woke up.
“Dad?”
“I’m here.”
“Someone was in Grandma’s room.”
Daniel stood. “When?”
“Before she fell. The man Mom said was fixing stuff.”
“Caleb?”
Ethan nodded. “Grandma yelled at him.”
“What did she say?”
The boy squeezed the fox tighter. “She said, ‘You already ruined one family. You’re not taking this one too.’”
Daniel felt ice move through his veins.
Then Ethan added, “I made a video.”
Daniel stared at him.
“What?”
“On my tablet. I was making my spy movie.”
They hurried upstairs.
Ethan’s tablet was not on his desk.
His backpack was empty.
The charger was still plugged into the wall.
“Mom took it,” Ethan said.
“How do you know?”
“She asked me where it was after Grandma yelled at that man.”
Daniel called Detective Reed.
While he waited for the call to connect, something moved outside the bedroom window.
A shadow crossed the backyard.
Daniel ran downstairs.
The back door was open.
Cold air poured into the kitchen.
A drawer near the pantry had been pulled out and dumped across the floor.
Footsteps thudded in the mud beyond the patio.
Daniel almost followed.
Then he heard Ethan scream upstairs.
He turned and ran back.
The boy was standing in the hallway holding a small black memory card between two fingers.
“I lied to Mom,” Ethan said breathlessly. “I told her the video was on the tablet.”
May you like
He pointed at his toy police car.
“I hid the real card in there.”
