Chương 6
She answered on the fourth ring.
“This is either very early or very late,” she said.
“I need help.”
The change in his voice woke her fully.
He told her only what he had seen, what he had recorded, and what Gwen had disclosed. Nina did not gasp or offer sympathy. She asked whether the hospital had photographed the injuries, whether Gwen wanted law enforcement involved, who owned the mansion, who employed the security staff, and whether Brenda had access to Lucas’s personal accounts or devices.
“My mother is not stealing from me.”
“I didn’t ask whether she was stealing. I asked what she can access.”
Lucas looked through the glass panel in Gwen’s door.
“Almost everything connected to the company.”
“Then stop treating this as one problem.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means your wife’s safety is one problem. The baby’s health is another. Evidence is another. Your mother’s control over your housing, staff, legal representation, communications, and employment is another. If you blend them together, she controls the pace.”
“What do I do first?”
“What does Gwen want?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then that is first.”
Nina arrived at nine carrying a canvas tote and two coffees. She was in her early fifties, short, silver-haired, and dressed in clothes that looked expensive only because they fit perfectly. She greeted Gwen without touching her and placed a card on the bedside table.
“I represent Lucas if he hires me,” she said. “I do not represent you. I can find someone independent for you, or the hospital advocate can. You should not assume your interests are identical just because you are married.”
Lucas disliked the sentence.
Gwen seemed relieved by it.
Nina asked Lucas to leave while she explained options to Gwen. He walked the corridor until he reached a window facing Peachtree Road. Morning traffic had thickened below. A man in scrubs stood near the vending machines, trying to persuade a granola bar to fall by striking the glass with his palm.
Lucas watched him for several minutes.
When Nina came out, she said Gwen had agreed to speak with an independent attorney and a victim advocate. She had not decided whether to report the assault.
“Can’t the hospital report it?” Lucas asked.
“There are situations in which providers have mandatory duties. I’m not going to guess how those rules apply here. The staff will follow their procedure. But do not build your plan around somebody else taking the decision away from Gwen.”
“She’s afraid.”
“Of what?”
“My mother.”
“Only your mother?”
Lucas looked through the window in the door.
Nina’s expression softened slightly.
“You may be part of what she is afraid of,” she said.
“I didn’t do this.”
“No. But when a person hides harm for months, they are usually predicting more than the offender’s reaction.”
Lucas hired Nina before breakfast.
By noon, the first public version of the incident appeared online.
A society account posted that “a prominent Atlanta development family” had suffered a private disturbance during a women’s luncheon and that an expectant mother had been hospitalized after an “emotional episode.” No names appeared, but photographs from past charity events made the identities obvious within an hour.
Comments multiplied.
Some expressed concern. Others claimed Gwen had always looked fragile. A person who identified herself as a former event planner wrote that Brenda Dawson was demanding but never cruel. Someone else said Lucas had a temper and had once broken a chair during a meeting. The story was false, but it was specific enough to travel.
Lucas wanted to release the video.
Gwen said no.
They were alone when he showed her the post.
“If people see what I saw, this stops,” he said.
“No, it changes.”
“For the better.”
“You don’t know that.”
“It proves she lied.”
“It shows me on my knees under a table.”
“We can crop you out.”
“Then it shows your mother bending over something while you shout at her.”
“I didn’t shout.”
“People will say you did.”
“I don’t care what people say about me.”
“I care what they say about me.”
He set the phone down.
“The story is already out.”
“Then let it be wrong for one day.”
“What happens tomorrow?”
“I decide tomorrow.”
He pressed his lips together.
Gwen watched him.
“There,” she said.
“What?”
“That look.”
“What look?”
“The one where you believe patience is something other people owe you.”
He stood and walked to the window before he said something cruel.
Behind him, Gwen shifted in bed.
“I know you want to protect me,” she said.
“I do.”
“But protection that doesn’t let me choose is just a nicer room with the same locked door.”
Lucas rested his forehead against the cool glass.
He had no answer that did not sound borrowed from a better man.
Gwen’s contractions became irregular by the second evening. Dr. Shah agreed to discharge her with strict instructions to return if the pain intensified, if there was bleeding or fluid, if movement changed, or if anything felt wrong. The doctor did not promise that the danger had passed.
They could not return to the mansion.
Lucas suggested a suite at a hotel owned by a business partner. Gwen refused because the staff would know them. He suggested their unfinished house, but the plumbing inspection had failed and construction crews still had access. Nina arranged a furnished apartment in Midtown under a short-term corporate lease unrelated to the Dawson companies.
The apartment had beige walls, two bedrooms, and a view of another building’s parking garage. The kitchen drawers stuck. A framed print of three lemons hung above the sofa.
Lucas carried in the overnight bags while Gwen stood inside the doorway.
“I hate the lemons,” she said.
He looked at the print.
“They’re aggressive.”
For the first time since the dining room, he almost smiled.
“Should I take it down?”
“No. Then there’ll be hooks.”
May you like
He left the lemons where they were.
A victim advocate named Tasha Green came that afternoon. She spoke with Gwen in the second bedroom while Lucas unpacked groceries. He bought too much: crackers, soup, fruit, yogurt, bread, sparkling water, six kinds of tea, and a family-sized box of cereal neither of them ate.
