Chapter 2 - THE CAMERA THEY COULDN'T REACHMarcus grabbed a kitchen chair and dragged it toward the pantry.
I had expected that.
What happened next surprised all three of us.
The camera chirped.
Marcus stopped.
Rachel stared upward.
A small blue indicator flashed twice.
“What's that?” she demanded.
“Cloud sync.”
Marcus looked at me.
I didn't know whether that was actually what the light meant.
But neither did he.
“You're bluffing.”
I shrugged.
Pain shot through my ribs.
“Climb up and find out.”
Rachel swore.
“Destroy it.”
Marcus didn't move.
“Marcus!”
“If it's uploaded, smashing it does nothing.”
For once, my children remembered I wasn't completely useless with technology.
I hadn't installed the system.
But my neighbor's son had shown me how to change the password, enable remote storage, and share emergency access with one other person.
That person was my younger sister, Linda, in Knoxville.
She was asleep at that hour.
Probably.
I needed Rachel and Marcus to believe she wasn't.
I looked toward the clock above the stove.
9:47 p.m.
“Seventeen minutes.”
Marcus came toward me.
Then stopped.
The change in his behavior was immediate.
He no longer wanted to touch me where a camera could see.
That told me exactly how much control he still had.
“Mom,” he said.
The word sounded obscene.
“Let's calm down.”
Rachel stared at him.
“He has the document.”
“No.”
“What?”
“He has a fake document.”
Her eyes flashed.
“You don't know that.”
“I know what I signed.”
Marcus leaned against the island.
“We're not stealing from you.”
“You punched me.”
“You were hysterical.”
I almost laughed.
“I was sitting at my kitchen table.”
“You shoved me first.”
That was a lie.
A deliberate one.
He was already practicing.
Rachel joined him.
“You threw the glass.”
I looked at the broken wineglass.
Rachel had swept it off the island when I refused to show her my bank balance.
Now I understood why.
They weren't only trying to frighten me.
They were constructing another version of the evening while it was happening.
“Say it louder,” I told her.
“What?”
“For the camera.”
She went quiet.
Marcus folded the forged power of attorney.
Then I heard tires outside.
All three of us looked toward the front windows.
Headlights swept across the kitchen.
Rachel panicked.
“Who is that?”
I didn't know.
Then I remembered.
Thursday.
My neighbor, Susan Bell, brought my grocery order inside every Thursday night after choir practice because she thought I shouldn't carry heavy bags with my arthritis.
I had forgotten.
Marcus whispered, “Don't.”
Susan knocked.
“Evelyn?”
I started toward the door.
Marcus stepped in front of me.
The camera saw him.
He knew it.
So he didn't touch me.
Susan knocked again.
“Evelyn, your porch light's on.”
Rachel whispered, “Tell her you're fine.”
I stared at her.
“Or?”
Her face changed.
She had no answer that wouldn't sound like a threat.
Susan tried the door.
Locked.
Normally I left it open for her.
“Evelyn?”
I shouted.
“Call 911!”
Marcus moved.
Too late.
Susan dropped the grocery bags.
I heard her running across the porch.
Rachel grabbed her purse.
Marcus seized the forged document.
“You did this,” he said.
“No.”
I held my side.
“You did.”
They left through the garage before police arrived.
Marcus took the paper.
He couldn't take the recording.
Twenty-two minutes later I was in an ambulance headed toward Williamson Medical Center.
The doctors found one fractured rib, extensive bruising, a split lip, and contusions along both knees and arms.
A sheriff's deputy photographed everything.
I gave a statement.
Susan gave one too.
Then my daughter called the hospital.
Not to apologize.
Her first words were:
“Mom, don't tell them Marcus hit you. You'll ruin his life.”
I closed my eyes.
“Rachel.”
“What?”
“You were standing there.”
Silence.
Then she said something I would remember for the rest of my life.
“After everything Dad promised us, you're the one who started this.”
That sentence told me the fight hadn't begun with three million dollars.
May you like
It had begun with my dead husband.
And I had spent six years protecting the lie he left behind.
Related Stories
