Chapter 4
Three days after the restraining order was served, Hale called me at 7 a.m., his voice urgent.
“They tried to break into the condo last night,” he said.
My blood ran cold. I sat up fast, my head throbbing.
“What?”
“Neighbors called the police around 2 a.m.,” he said. “Said they saw three people matching Daniel, Linda, and Hannah’s descriptions trying to pry open the back patio door. The cops got there before they could get in, but they left tire tracks and a crowbar on the ground.”
He paused. “They’re getting desperate, Clara. They know they’re losing. And desperate people do stupid things.”
I thought of the condo. Of all Dad’s things still inside.
His old armchair. His toolbox in the garage. The recipe box full of his handwritten notes.
“What if they get in next time?” I said, my voice shaking. “What if they destroy everything?”
Hale was quiet for a second.
“Your dad mentioned something once,” he said slowly. “When you two were fixing up the condo. Did he ever mention security cameras?”
I froze.
Oh my God. Yes.
I’d completely forgotten.
The summer before Dad died, we’d redone the whole electrical system.
He’d installed four tiny hidden cameras—one above the front door, one in the kitchen, one in the dining room, one above the back patio.
“For your safety, baby,” he’d said, when I’d teased him about being paranoid.
“You never know who’s going to try to take what’s yours.”
He’d showed me where the DVR was hidden: inside a fake air vent in the laundry room, wired to a separate battery backup so even if the power went out, it kept recording.
I’d never checked it once after we got married. Daniel had hated the idea of cameras, said they were “an invasion of privacy.” I’d disabled the app on my phone to make him happy.
Stupid. So stupid.
“They’re still there,” I said, my heart racing. “Four of them. Hidden. The DVR is in the laundry room vent.”
Hale whooped so loud I had to hold the phone away from my ear.
“That’s the smoking gun, Clara!” he said. “If those cameras recorded what happened that night? We don’t just win the divorce. We put them in jail.”
An hour later, we were at the condo with a court order and two uniformed police officers.
The front door was still boarded up from where the police had broken it down the night of the attack.
The air inside smelled like stale lasagna and blood.
I didn’t go into the dining room. I couldn’t. I just stood in the entryway, my hands clenched, while Hale and the officers went to the laundry room.
Five minutes later, Hale came back, holding a small black DVR box in his hand like it was the Holy Grail.
“Got it,” he said, his eyes shining. “Let’s go watch.”
We went back to Hale’s office. He had a big screen TV on the wall, all the cables ready to go.
He slid the DVR into the player, fast-forwarded to the night of the attack.
I held my breath.
The screen flickered to life.
There we were. The four of us, sitting around the dining room table.
The audio was crystal clear.
I heard Linda’s voice, syrupy sweet: “We’ve decided I’m moving in here.”
I heard my own voice, steady at first: “This condo is mine. My dad left it to me.”
I heard Daniel’s sharp rebuke: “Don’t be rude. Mom deserves this more than you do.”
I heard Hannah’s snicker: “Oh, here we go. The dead dad card again.”
I heard Linda’s sneer: “What’s yours is ours. You should be grateful we let you stay.”
I watched Daniel stand up, fast, his chair scraping the tile.
I watched him grab the full plate of garlic bread, his knuckles white.
I watched him step toward me, his face twisted with rage.
I watched him rear back and throw the plate as hard as he could, right at my head.
I watched it hit my temple. I watched myself crumple to the floor.
I watched Linda step over me, not a single care in the world.
I watched Hannah kick my leg, laughing.
I watched the lawyer letter slip out of Linda’s purse.
I watched Daniel look down at me, cold as ice, and admit the whole thing was a scam.
I watched the door slam open, Hale step inside, say his piece.
Then the footage cut to black.
The room was silent.
Hale turned to me, his face white with rage.
“I’ve seen a lot of evil in my job,” he said, his voice low. “But that? That takes the cake.”
He paused, then grinned, sharp and fierce.
“But it’s also the best thing that could have happened to us. This footage is irrefutable. No judge, no jury, no cop in the world is going to look at that and believe their lies. We’ve got them, Clara. Dead to rights.”
Detective Miller came by Hale’s office an hour later to pick up a copy of the footage.
He watched ten minutes of it, his jaw set tight.
When it was over, he looked up at me.
“I’m issuing arrest warrants for all three of them,” he said. “Assault, battery, conspiracy to commit fraud, attempted burglary. This is going to be a felony case, Ms. Carter. They’re looking at real jail time.”
I nodded. I didn’t feel happy. I didn’t feel vindicated.
I just felt tired.
Tired of fighting. Tired of being hurt. Tired of these people taking up so much space in my head.
But I also felt something else.
Resolve.
They’d taken three years of my life. They’d tried to take my home, my safety, my dignity.
They weren’t taking anything else.
I was going to see this through to the end.
May you like
For Dad.
For me.
