Chương 3
He called Tessa a liar. Nora said the screenshots included photographs taken inside their house. He called Nora ungrateful. She told him she had spoken to Samuel. He called her stupid.
Then he told her to leave his house.
She laughed.
It was a tiny sound, one startled breath. She had not meant to provoke him. The absurdity simply escaped.
He threw the mug.
The liquid struck first. The ceramic followed, glancing off her shoulder and breaking near the pantry. She remembered the clean white flare of pain, the kitchen tilting, Derek stepping backward instead of forward.
She remembered the water from the sink running over her cheek while he said, “Look what you made happen.”
She remembered him taking her phone from the counter.
She remembered pretending the burn was worse than it was so he would leave the room to search for ointment.
It had been worse than she understood.
While he stood in the upstairs bathroom, she opened the voice assistant on her watch and called Tessa.
Not 911.
Tessa.
Even now, that choice embarrassed her.
Tessa had called the police.
Nora had told the emergency dispatcher that Derek was unarmed. She had said it twice, though nobody asked the second time.
Samuel entered the kitchen but stayed near the doorway.
“You should sit down.”
“I’ve been sitting all night.”
“Then lean on something.”
“I’m already leaning on several institutions and a man with a document bag.”
He smiled slightly. “That sounded like your father.”
She regretted the sentence at once.
Samuel had been her father’s lawyer and closest friend for twenty-seven years. He had sat beside the hospice bed on the last afternoon, folding and unfolding a parking receipt while Nora’s father slept. After the funeral, he handled the sale of the machine shop and the transfer of a small parcel of land no developer wanted until a highway expansion changed its value.
The proceeds bought the house.
Nora had chosen it because the front hall was wide enough for her father’s wheelchair, though he died before closing.
For eight years, she had avoided thinking about that.
Derek had called the wide doorway wasted space.
Now it was the line he could not cross.
Samuel set a folded sheet of paper on the counter. “The bank’s fraud department called me back.”
Nora looked at him.
“They found two attempted transfers and one completed payment to a company called Hawthorne Residential Consulting.”
“I don’t know that company.”
“Tessa does.”
Tessa had followed them into the kitchen. She folded both arms across her stomach.
“It’s Derek,” she said. “Or mostly Derek. The company is registered to his friend Kyle, but Derek used it to invoice people.”
“For what?”
“Nothing. Sometimes marketing work. Sometimes home renovation estimates. Mostly nothing.”
Nora looked at Samuel. “How much?”
“Forty-eight thousand dollars cleared last month.”
The burn seemed to pulse with her heartbeat.
“That account had alerts.”
“They were redirected to an email address with your name in it,” Samuel said. “Not your email. One letter was different.”
Nora pulled out a chair.
The legs scraped loudly across the tile.
She sat.
Tessa remained standing. “I didn’t know he’d gotten that far.”
“You knew he was trying.”
“I knew he talked about it.”
“You read his messages.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
Tessa’s eyes went to the fruit bowl. “Since March.”
It was August.
Nora studied the red strands escaping Tessa’s knot, the fading bruise near her wrist, the skin she had worried raw beside one thumbnail.
“What were you to him?”
Samuel shifted his weight, but Nora looked only at Tessa.
Tessa’s face tightened. “I don’t know how to answer that without making everything worse.”
“Try the true version.”
“We worked together.”
“At the dealership.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And he said you were separated.”
Nora gave a small nod.
Tessa hurried on. “He said you both still lived here for financial reasons. He said you slept upstairs and he slept in the basement.”
“He sleeps on the right side of my bed because he claims the left gives him reflux.”
“I know that now.”
“When did you know it?”
Tessa’s eyes filled, but she did not cry. “May.”
“And you kept seeing him.”
“Yes.”
The directness landed harder than an excuse.
Nora leaned back and felt the wooden slats press through her coat.
“Why are you here?”
Tessa looked toward the front hall, where Malik spoke quietly into his radio.
“Because last week I told him I was done. He said I didn’t get to be done until he had what he needed. He wanted me to sign a statement saying you had promised to invest in Hawthorne. When I refused, he grabbed my wrist.”
The bruise.
“He told me nobody would believe the kind of woman who slept with a married man,” Tessa said. “He was probably right about some people.”
Nora’s first impulse was cruel.
She wanted to tell Tessa that being used did not erase what she had chosen. That fear arriving late was still late. That the screenshots should have come in March, or May, or any day before boiling coffee peeled the skin from Nora’s face.
Instead she asked, “Why did you call him yesterday?”
Tessa looked startled.
“I saw your name on his phone.”
“He called me first. I didn’t answer. Then I called back because he left a voicemail saying he knew where my sister worked.”
Samuel swore under his breath.
Tessa took out her phone. “I saved it.”
Nora looked at the device but did not reach for it.
Malik stepped into the kitchen. “Ms. Monroe, the detective will need that recording.”
“I already emailed it.”
“Good.”
“Is Derek under arrest?” Nora asked.
“Not at this time.”
May you like
The words made the room feel briefly unreal.
Malik continued before anyone could interrupt. “The initial responding officers documented your injury, the broken mug, statements from both parties, and the messages available last night. The detective will review the evidence with the prosecutor. The protective order is separate from a charging decision.”
