Chapter 4 - The Cost of Saying His Name
Erin filed a supplemental police report with a Westerville detective named Marcus Bell.
She described the motel, the missing phone, the forty-five-minute delay, and Frank’s second assault in the garage.
“Did anyone witness what happened today?” Bell asked.
“My mother.”
“Will she confirm it?”
“No.”
Erin hated how weak the answer sounded.
Bell photographed the fresh bruising around her wrist and contacted the hospital about her original injuries. He warned her that recovering memories after a traumatic brain injury could be challenged.
“That doesn’t mean they’re false,” he said. “It means we need independent support.”
Erin requested a civil protection order.
The filing became public enough to reach Frank’s employees before the judge reviewed it.
Walsh Heating and Cooling employed nineteen technicians across Franklin and Delaware counties. Frank had built the company over twenty-seven years. Its name appeared on youth baseball jerseys, church auction banners, and service vans throughout the northern suburbs.
By evening, Erin’s younger brother, Owen, called from Cincinnati.
“Dad says you’re trying to ruin the company.”
“Dad put me in a coma.”
“He says you fell.”
“He attacked me again yesterday.”
“And Mom watched?”
“Yes.”
Owen gave a disbelieving laugh.
“You expect me to believe Mom stood there?”
“I don’t expect anything from you.”
“That business pays for her health insurance. It paid for your college.”
“It doesn’t get to buy my silence.”
Owen hung up.
The temporary order barred Frank from contacting Erin and required him to surrender the handgun he kept in his office. Linda was not included because Erin lacked evidence that she had physically harmed her.
Frank responded through an attorney, claiming Erin was suffering from memory distortion and persecutory thinking after her injury.
Attached to his response was a statement signed by Linda.
She wrote that Erin had become “fixated on an imagined affair” and attacked Frank when he tried to calm her.
Erin reached the final paragraph and stopped.
Linda claimed she had called 911 within five minutes.
The phone records would show otherwise.
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Her mother was no longer merely refusing to help.
She was creating evidence.
