Chương 10
Mom’s face fell.
Immediately, I regretted it.
Then another part of me did not.
That contradiction sat between us.
I rubbed my forehead.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“You’re right.”
“I’m angry at everyone.”
“You’re allowed.”
“That doesn’t mean I get to be cruel.”
“You weren’t cruel.”
Megan opened one of the soup containers.
“You were mildly sharp.”
Mom looked at her.
“Not helping.”
“I’m trying to establish a family baseline.”
Dad put his glasses back on.
“What exactly did David know about the forms?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“He knew about the bank authorization?”
“Yes.”
“The power of attorney?”
“He looked surprised.”
“Could he have been pretending?”
“Yes.”
Dad nodded once.
“Could he genuinely not have known?”
“Yes.”
He looked irritated by both possibilities.
“So we know almost nothing.”
“We know enough to cancel the wedding.”
“That part was never in question.”
Mom turned toward the papers.
“Can I see them?”
I moved aside.
She read slowly.
Her lips pressed together when she reached the income holder label.
“What does this mean?”
“It means Brenda sees money as a family resource and me as the source of it.”
Dad leaned over her shoulder.
“Household leadership?”
“That’s David.”
He gave a short humorless laugh.
“Convenient.”
Mom reached the power-of-attorney form.
Her hand stopped.
“This is broad.”
“Yes.”
“Would it even be valid if you signed it?”
“I’m not a lawyer.”
Dad said, “Doesn’t matter.”
Mom looked at him.
“It matters whether they could have used it.”
“It doesn’t matter to whether she should leave.”
“No one is saying she shouldn’t leave.”
“I know.”
“You sound like you think I’m defending them.”
“I don’t.”
“You have that voice.”
“What voice?”
“The one where you’re angry and accidentally make everyone else feel accused.”
Megan looked at me.
“Genetic.”
Dad stared at both of us.
Then, unexpectedly, he smiled.
It vanished quickly.
The tension in the room loosened by half an inch.
The police officer arrived twenty minutes later.
Her name was Officer Kelly.
She was younger than I expected, maybe early thirties, with dark hair pulled into a tight bun and a notebook that looked as though it had been dropped in rain more than once.
She listened without interrupting much.
When I described David blocking the apartment door, she asked how close he had been.
“Three or four feet.”
“Did he touch you?”
“No.”
“Threaten to hurt you?”
“No.”
“Did you believe you could leave without him moving?”
“No.”
She wrote that down.
Then she examined the documents.
“Who owns the apartment where this occurred?”
“David rents it.”
“And his mother was present?”
“Yes.”
“Did you take these papers from the apartment?”
“Yes.”
“Did anyone object?”
“Brenda did.”
“What did she say?”
“That they were private family documents and belonged there.”
Officer Kelly nodded slowly.
“Do you know who printed them?”
“No.”
“Who completed the handwritten sections?”
“Some appear to be Brenda’s.”
“Appear?”
“I recognize her handwriting.”
“And this?”
She pointed to the security-question sheet.
“I think that is David’s.”
“Think?”
I showed her the anniversary card.
She compared them without making a judgment.
“Keep both.”
She moved to the building access log.
“Management confirmed this?”
“Yes.”
“Can they preserve video?”
“They said they submitted a request.”
“Good.”
She asked about the missing flash drive.
“When did you last physically see it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Days?”
“Could be weeks.”
“So you cannot say when it disappeared.”
“No.”
“Could you have misplaced it?”
“Yes.”
Megan shifted beside me.
Officer Kelly looked up.
“That doesn’t mean you did.”
“I know.”
“I just need the report to separate what you know from what you suspect.”
“I understand.”
For the first time all day, someone saying that made me feel calmer instead of dismissed.
She asked about the employee access attempts.
I explained what the bank had told me.
“Can your employer provide records?”
“Probably, through the proper process.”
“Do you have them now?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll note that your employer informed you of attempted access, but I can’t independently verify it yet.”
“That’s fair.”
She looked over the power-of-attorney form again.
“Has your signature been forged anywhere?”
“Not that I’ve found.”
“Any money missing from your personal accounts?”
“No.”
“Any credit opened?”
“No.”
“Any attempt to sell or refinance the condo?”
“Not that I know of.”
She nodded.
“Then right now we have several concerning facts, but not enough to tell you exactly what occurred.”
Dad frowned.
“Concerning facts?”
Officer Kelly turned toward him.
“I’m not minimizing it.”
“It sounds like you are.”
“Dad.”
“No, she was prevented from leaving.”
Officer Kelly met his eyes.
“And that is in the report.”
“So what happens?”
“That depends on the facts we can establish.”
He opened his mouth.
Mom touched his arm.
He stopped.
Officer Kelly looked back at me.
“If Mr. Mercer returns here, do not meet him alone.”
“I won’t.”
“If he threatens you, blocks you from leaving again, or refuses to leave private property after being told, call 911.”
“Okay.”
“If you communicate, keep it in writing.”
“That was already my plan.”
“I suspected.”
A tiny smile appeared.
Then she closed her notebook.
“I’m giving you an incident number.”
“Will you contact him?”
“Possibly.”
The word made my stomach drop.
I had wanted consequences in the abstract.
The idea of a police officer actually calling David made the entire thing feel suddenly irreversible.
Officer Kelly noticed.
“You can still decide what personal contact you want.”
“I know.”
“But documentation matters when behavior repeats.”
She handed me the card.
After she left, my parents stayed.
Mom heated soup.
Dad replaced a loose hinge on one of my kitchen cabinets without asking.
Megan sat on the floor sorting David’s belongings into boxes.
His running shoes.
Two sweatshirts.
A phone charger.
A razor.
A paperback novel he had been halfway through for six months.
Normal things.
That was the cruelty of it.
May you like
Nothing in the box looked like it belonged to a man who had helped prepare financial-control paperwork.
It looked like somebody who stayed over on weekends.
