Chapter 4
We left the hospital the next morning.
Olivia was on strict bed rest for the next two weeks, Dr. Hale said.
Too much stress could trigger early labor.
At seven and a half months, that would mean weeks in the NICU.
Maybe worse.
The house felt different when we walked in.
Cold.
Like Mom’s presence was still stuck in the walls, in the carpet, in the air we breathed.
Olivia clung to my arm as we walked up the stairs, her eyes darting to every corner, every closed door.
Like she expected Mom to jump out from behind one of them.
I’d had a security company come that morning.
Four cameras.
One at the front door, one at the back, one covering the driveway, one in the hallway outside the nursery.
All linked to my phone.
Motion sensors on every window and door.
A panic button on Olivia’s nightstand that would call 911 the second she pressed it.
I helped Olivia into bed, propped her up with pillows, and covered her legs with a soft cotton blanket.
Not the thick wool one.
That was in the trash out by the curb, along with every trace of Mom I could find.
Her toothbrush.
Her makeup.
The ugly painting she’d hung in the living room.
All of it.
“I’m going to make you some soup,” I said, brushing the hair off her forehead.
“Be right back.
Yell if you need anything.
Anything at all.”
She nodded, but her hand didn’t let go of my shirt.
“Can you leave the door open?” she said.
Her voice was small.
“Please.”
“Of course.”
Downstairs, I pulled a pot out of the cabinet, and my hand brushed against the stack of dad’s mail I’d left on the counter.
Unopened since his funeral.
I’d been too busy, too sad, to go through it.
Now, for some reason, I couldn’t look away.
I sat at the table and started opening it.
Bills.
Junk mail.
Condolence cards.
Then a thick manila envelope, postmarked two days before he died.
Addressed to me.
In his messy, slanted handwriting.
My hands shook as I tore it open.
Inside was a letter.
And a second copy of his will.
Dated three weeks before he died.
The same one Mom had shown me.
$4.2 million to me, if I had a male heir within a year.
If not, to charity.
Not to Mom.
Charity.
I read the letter fast, my heart hammering.
My son, it started.
If you’re reading this, I’m gone.
And I need you to listen to me very carefully.
Your mother is not the woman you think she is.
I caught her putting something in my coffee three weeks ago.
Small doses.
Enough to make me sick, slow, so I’d change the will in her favor.
I didn’t say anything.
I was scared of what she’d do if she knew I was onto her.
So I changed the will anyway.
The one she has is a fake.
I printed it myself, left it where she’d find it, to keep her calm until I could figure out what to do.
She wants the money more than anything in this world.
More than me.
More than you.
Don’t trust her.
Not with anything.
Especially not with the people you love.
I stared at the paper.
A fake will.
Mom had waved a fake piece of paper in my face, proud as anything, and I’d believed her.
Dad had known.
He’d tried to warn me.
And I’d been too blind to see it.
I ran up the stairs, letter in hand, and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Olivia,” I said.
“Look at this.”
She read it slow, her free hand resting on her stomach.
When she finished, she looked up at me, her eyes wide.
“A fake?” she said.
“So all of it… the threats, the bruises… she did it all for nothing?”
I nodded.
“Every bit.
The real will leaves everything to charity if we don’t have the baby.
She gets zero.
Nothing.”
A small, shaky laugh escaped her.
Half sob, half relief.
“All that pain.
For nothing.”
I held her, the letter crumpled in my other hand.
It wasn’t nothing, though.
It was proof.
Proof of motive.
Proof she’d planned this for months.
Proof she’d faked a legal document to manipulate us.
It was one more nail in her coffin.
That night, Olivia fell asleep early, exhausted from the day.
I sat in the chair beside the bed, my phone in my hand, watching the camera feeds.
The street was quiet.
Dark.
Nothing moving but the wind blowing the oak tree in the front yard.
At 2:17 a.m., the front door camera pinged.
Motion detected.
My blood ran cold.
I tapped the feed fast.
A figure in a dark hoodie stood on our porch.
Head down, face hidden.
They lifted a hand and slipped something under the front door.
Then turned and walked fast down the driveway, disappearing into the dark.
I didn’t wake Olivia.
I grabbed the baseball bat I kept by the bedroom door and crept down the stairs, barefoot, quiet as I could.
The house was dark, silent but for the hum of the fridge.
I flipped on the porch light.
Looked down.
A single piece of paper lay on the doormat.
Folded in half.
I picked it up with two fingers, like it was contaminated.
Unfolded it.
It was a photo.
Of Olivia.
Taken that morning, as we’d walked from the hospital entrance to the car.
She was holding her stomach, her head down, my arm around her.
Scrawled across the photo in red marker were three words.
Tick. Tock. Tick.
Underneath, a smaller note.
I know what’s on that phone.
I’ll be back for it.
And for the baby.
I ran back up the stairs, locked the bedroom door, and pushed the heavy dresser in front of it.
Olivia woke up, confused, when the dresser scraped the floor.
“What’s wrong?” she said, her voice sleepy, then sharp with fear when she saw my face.
“What happened?”
I showed her the photo.
She gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
I called 911 fast, my voice shaking as I told the operator what happened.
Then I called Ryan.
He answered on the first ring, wide awake, like he’d been waiting for this.
“I’m on my way,” he said.
“Cops too.
Lock all the doors.
Don’t open for anyone but me or the police.”
Thirty minutes later, the cops were dusting the doorknob for prints.
Ryan was sitting at the kitchen table, going through the voice memos on Olivia’s phone, his face tight with anger.
“This is enough,” he said, looking up at me.
“Threats, violation of a restraining order, the recordings, the bruises, the fake will.
We don’t have to wait for the assault trial.
We can file for an emergency arrest warrant tonight.
If they find her, she goes back to jail.
No bail this time.”
I looked at the photo on the table.
The red marker bleeding through the paper.
Olivia’s face, scared and small, captured without her knowing.
“Find her,” I said.
May you like
“Please.
Before she comes back.”
