Chương 6
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
Daniel’s voice became quieter.
“Because she found something else.”
“What?”
“She found out Patricia wasn’t working alone.”
I stopped.
“Who else?”
Daniel breathed out slowly.
“She thought someone inside the company was helping her.”
The answer should have shocked me.
But it didn’t.
Because I was already exhausted from being surprised.
“Who?”
“She never told me the name.”
“Why?”
“Because she was afraid the person would know she was investigating.”
I looked at my phone.
At Daniel’s name on the screen.
“Did she trust you?”
A long pause.
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t she tell you everything?”
“Because she didn’t want anyone else getting hurt.”
I almost laughed.
Emily.
Even when she was afraid.
Even when she was in danger.
She still tried to carry everything alone.
That had always been her greatest strength.
And her greatest weakness.
“Daniel.”
“Yeah?”
“Did you kill my wife?”
The silence afterward was the most painful thing I had ever heard.
Not because I believed he did.
Because I knew the question hurt him.
“No.”
One word.
Nothing else.
Then,
“I loved Emily.”
I sat back down.
My anger had nowhere to go.
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“You should have trusted me.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you?”
His answer came quietly.
“Because Emily was right about one thing.”
I waited.
“You weren’t ready.”
I wanted to argue.
I wanted to tell him he was wrong.
But I remembered the locked laundry room.
I remembered Ava whispering for help.
I remembered how many things I had failed to see because seeing them meant admitting I had failed.
The next morning, I received an email from an unknown address.
No message.
Only an attachment.
A photograph.
It was taken from outside my house.
My children were visible through the window.
Ava was sitting at the table.
Lucas was beside her.
The photograph had been taken that morning.
Under it were four words.
Stop looking, or next time you lose more.
I stared at the photograph until the screen dimmed.
Then I tapped it.
Nothing happened.
No hidden message.
No information about where it came from.
No clue that would make the fear easier to understand.
Just my children standing in my kitchen.
A normal morning turned into evidence that someone was watching us.
My first instinct was to call the police.
My second was to delete the email.
Neither happened.
I sat there holding my phone while every possible decision fought inside my head.
If I reported it, would the person know?
If I ignored it, would I be putting my children at risk?
For years, I had believed protecting my family meant removing every problem before they saw it.
I was starting to understand that sometimes protection meant letting people see the truth.
I called Detective Harris.
He had been the officer handling the initial report after the laundry room incident.
He answered quickly.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
The honesty surprised both of us.
“What happened?”
I sent him the photograph.
He did not speak while he reviewed it.
Then his voice changed.
“Do not delete anything.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Do not respond.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Are the children with you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you alone?”
I looked around the house.
The same house where I had thought my biggest problem was grief.
“Yes.”
“I’m sending someone over.”
The next thirty minutes felt longer than the entire night Patricia was removed from the house.
Fear behaves differently when you know it is real.
Before, I had been afraid of possibilities.
Now I was afraid of a person.
A person who knew where my children sat.
A person who knew I was looking.
I moved through the house checking locks.
Not because I believed a locked door could stop someone determined.
Because doing something was easier than standing still.
When Detective Harris arrived, he examined the photograph carefully.
“Do you recognize the location?”
I almost laughed.
“It’s my house.”
“I mean the angle.”
He zoomed in.
“The picture was taken from outside.”
“I know.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“I mean it was taken from a specific position.”
He pointed.
“See the reflection?”
I leaned closer.
In the glass of the window was a faint shape.
A car.
Parked across the street.
“I didn’t notice that.”
“Most people wouldn’t.”
He saved the image.
“We’ll request information from the provider, but don’t expect an immediate answer.”
I nodded.
Modern evidence sounded powerful until you needed it.
Then it became forms.
Requests.
Waiting.
Rules.
People always imagined technology solved everything.
They never imagined the hours between a threat and an answer.
Detective Harris looked around the kitchen.
“Was Patricia the only person who had access to this house?”
I hesitated.
That was enough.
“Who else?”
“Daniel.”
“Your brother?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He had a key years ago.”
“Does he still?”
“I don’t know.”
The detective wrote something down.
That small movement made my stomach tighten.
Because I knew what it meant.
Everyone I loved had become a question mark.
After he left, I called my mother.
She answered immediately.
“Are the kids okay?”
Her first concern was always them.
“Yes.”
A pause.
“What happened?”
I told her about the photograph.
Silence.
Then she whispered,
“No.”
The word bothered me.
Not because she was scared.
Because she sounded like she recognized the possibility.
“Mom.”
She took a breath.
“There’s something I never told you.”
I closed my eyes.
I was tired of that sentence.
But I listened.
“After Emily died, Patricia came to me.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“What did she want?”
“She asked me to convince you not to look into the company.”
The room became still.
“Why?”
“She said you needed to focus on the children.”
“And you believed her?”
“I wanted to.”
That answer was painfully human.
Not because it was right.
Because it was understandable.
My mother had been watching me collapse.
May you like
She had watched me forget meals.
She had watched me sleep on the couch for months because our bedroom felt impossible.
