Chapter 3
I stared at Officer Barnes.
“That’s impossible.”
He didn’t blink.
“They were married in Arizona six years ago.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
I stood so quickly the chair scraped across the hospital floor.
“Melissa married me two years ago.”
Barnes nodded.
“Yes.”
“You’re saying she was already married?”
“According to the records we found, there’s no divorce.”
My head felt like it was splitting open.
I looked at Lily.
She was still asleep beneath a thin hospital blanket.
My five-year-old daughter.
My entire world.
Melissa had entered our lives three years after Lily’s mother died.
I thought she had saved me.
Now I realized I had brought a stranger into my child’s home.
“What does Ryan want with Lily?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
“Then find him.”
“We are.”
I lowered my voice.
“You don’t understand.”
Barnes held my gaze.
“I think I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
I pointed toward Lily.
“My wife has been telling my daughter she’s getting a new father. She bought—or her actual husband bought—a one-way ticket across the country. There was a packed bag under her bed. They planned to leave tomorrow.”
Barnes nodded.
“And because of that, detectives are involved now.”
“Detectives?”
“Potential custodial interference, child endangerment, fraud, possibly identity-related offenses. We don’t know the full picture.”
My phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
I almost ignored it.
Then it vibrated again.
A text appeared.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO YOUR WIFE.
My body went rigid.
Another message.
NOW YOU’VE MADE THIS HARDER THAN IT NEEDED TO BE.
I showed Barnes.
His expression changed.
“Don’t respond.”
A third message appeared.
LILY BELONGS WITH HER REAL FAMILY.
I stared at those words.
Real family.
I looked at Lily.
“What does that mean?”
Barnes took a photo of the messages.
“Do you know who this number belongs to?”
“No.”
My phone rang.
Same number.
Barnes looked at me.
“Put it on speaker.”
I answered.
“Who is this?”
For a second there was only breathing.
Then a man spoke.
“Daniel.”
My skin crawled.
“Ryan?”
A low laugh.
“So she told you.”
“What do you want with my daughter?”
“You really have no idea, do you?”
“Stay away from her.”
“That might be difficult.”
“Why?”
He paused.
Then said, “Because Lily is the reason Melissa married you.”
The line went dead.
I stared at Barnes.
He was already calling someone.
“What did he mean?”
“We’ll trace it if we can.”
“What did he mean?”
“I don’t know.”
But I could see the same question in his face.
Why Lily?
Not me.
Lily.
That thought terrified me more than anything.
An hour later, a detective named Elena Ruiz arrived.
She was calm.
Direct.
She asked me questions I didn’t want to answer.
How had Melissa and I met?
At a grief support fundraiser.
How quickly did she become involved with Lily?
Slowly, I thought.
She volunteered to babysit.
Cooked dinner.
Read bedtime stories.
She seemed patient.
Gentle.
Perfect.
Too perfect.
“When did Melissa first meet Lily?” Ruiz asked.
I thought back.
“At the fundraiser.”
“Was Lily with you?”
“Yes.”
Ruiz wrote something down.
“So Melissa knew you had a daughter before she showed romantic interest.”
The sentence sounded ugly when she said it that way.
“Yes.”
“Did she ask questions about Lily’s biological mother?”
“All the time.”
“What kind of questions?”
“How she died. Whether Lily remembered her. Whether we still had contact with her family.”
Ruiz stopped writing.
“Do you?”
“Some.”
Lily’s mother, Emma, died in a car accident when Lily was eighteen months old.
Emma’s parents lived in Wisconsin.
We spoke occasionally.
Not as much as we should have.
Her father had died the year before.
Her mother, Margaret, was still alive.
“Was Melissa particularly interested in Emma’s relatives?”
I tried to remember.
“She asked whether Emma had siblings.”
“Did she?”
“One.”
Ruiz looked up.
“A brother?”
“Yes. Noah.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
That sounded terrible.
But after Emma died, Noah disappeared from our lives.
He struggled with drugs.
He blamed himself for not helping Emma the night she crashed because she had called him from the road after an argument with me.
I hadn’t seen him in four years.
Ruiz tapped her pen.
“Do you have his number?”
“Probably an old one.”
“Find it.”
I pulled out my phone.
Before I could search, Lily stirred.
“Daddy?”
I was beside her instantly.
“I’m here.”
Her eyes moved toward Ruiz.
“Who’s she?”
“A police officer who wants to help us.”
Ruiz smiled.
“Hi, Lily.”
Lily watched her cautiously.
“Are you taking Melissa away?”
Ruiz glanced at me.
“She’s talking to police right now.”
“Good.”
My chest tightened.
A five-year-old shouldn’t sound relieved that her stepmother was being questioned by police.
Ruiz pulled a chair closer.
“Lily, can I ask you something?”
Lily looked at me.
I nodded.
“Okay.”
“Who is Uncle Ryan?”
“He’s Melissa’s friend.”
“You called him uncle?”
“Melissa told me to.”
“How often does he come to your house?”
Lily thought.
“A lot.”
“When Daddy is gone?”
She nodded.
My stomach turned.
“What does he do when he comes over?”
“They talk.”
“About what?”
Lily’s forehead wrinkled.
“Money.”
Ruiz leaned forward.
“What money?”
“The money Mommy left me.”
I stopped breathing.
Ruiz looked at me.
“Mr. Carter?”
I whispered, “Emma had a life insurance policy.”
“How much?”
“Half a million dollars.”
Ruiz’s expression sharpened.
“Who controls it?”
“It went into a trust for Lily.”
“Who is trustee?”
“I am.”
“And when can Lily access it?”
“Most of it at eighteen.”
Ruiz looked back at Lily.
“Did Melissa talk about that money?”
Lily nodded.
“She said when I got my new daddy, they could get it.”
“No.”
The word escaped me.
Ruiz’s gaze snapped back to me.
“That doesn’t make legal sense,” I said. “Changing custody wouldn’t automatically give them access to her trust.”
“Not legally,” Ruiz said.
The word legally stayed in the air.
Then Lily said, “Ryan said Daddy already signed it.”
I turned toward her.
“Signed what?”
She shrugged.
“Papers.”
My mind immediately jumped to documents Melissa had asked me to sign over the last year.
Insurance forms.
School forms.
Tax forms.
Mortgage paperwork.
I suddenly couldn’t remember every page.
Ruiz saw my face.
“What are you thinking?”
“She handled our household paperwork.”
“Banking?”
“Some.”
“Taxes?”
“Yes.”
“Your signature?”
“Sometimes she’d leave documents on the counter with sticky notes showing where I needed to sign.”
Ruiz leaned back.
“We need to review everything.”
My phone rang again.
This time it wasn’t Ryan.
It was Mrs. Alvarez.
I answered immediately.
“Daniel?”
“What happened?”
“There are police at your house.”
“I know.”
“No. More police.”
I stood.
“Why?”
She lowered her voice.
“Someone broke into your garage.”
My blood ran cold.
“Is anyone there?”
“They’re searching.”
“Did they take anything?”
“I don’t know.”
Then she gasped.
“What?”
“Mrs. Alvarez?”
She whispered, “They found someone.”
I heard shouting in the background.
Then a man yelling.
The phone shifted.
“Mrs. Alvarez!”
A second later she returned.
“They got him.”
“Who?”
“I can’t see his face.”
Then I heard another voice behind her.
One of the officers.
“Ma’am, step back.”
She whispered quickly.
“Daniel, the man was inside your car.”
My heart stopped.
“My car?”
“Yes.”
“What was he doing?”
“I don’t know.”
The call ended.
Ruiz immediately contacted the officers at my house.
She listened.
Her face grew darker.
Then she looked at me.
“They arrested Ryan Mercer.”
I almost felt relief.
Almost.
“What was he doing in my car?”
Ruiz hesitated.
“He had a screwdriver, gloves, and your spare key.”
“Why?”
“They found something else.”
“What?”
“A child’s booster seat.”
I frowned.
“We already have one.”
“Not yours.”
Then Ruiz took a slow breath.
“And they found forged custody papers naming Ryan and Melissa as Lily’s legal guardians.”
The hospital room seemed to tilt.
I gripped the bedrail.
Ruiz continued.
“Those documents have your signature on them.”
“I never signed anything like that.”
“I believe you.”
Then Lily sat up suddenly.
Her face was pale.
“Daddy?”
I turned.
“What?”
She whispered, “That’s the paper Melissa made you sign when you were sick.”
I remembered.
Three months earlier.
The flu.
A fever.
Melissa brought me a stack of insurance paperwork.
I signed where she pointed.
My stomach twisted.
Ruiz asked Lily softly, “Did you see that?”
Lily nodded.
“Melissa laughed after Daddy went upstairs.”
I closed my eyes.
I had failed her.
Not because I didn’t love her.
Because I trusted someone who had studied exactly how to use that love against me.
Ruiz’s phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Then her face changed in a way I didn’t like.
“What now?”
She ended the call.
“Melissa is claiming you abused her.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“She says you’ve been violent for months.”
“That’s a lie.”
“She has photographs.”
“Of what?”
“Bruises.”
I couldn’t speak.
Ruiz continued carefully.
“She’s also claiming you’ve been emotionally abusive to Lily.”
“That’s insane.”
“And she says tomorrow’s trip was an emergency escape plan.”
I laughed once because the alternative was screaming.
“She locked Lily in a shed.”
“I know.”
“She hid the ticket.”
“I know.”
“She forged custody documents.”
“We’re investigating.”
I rubbed both hands over my face.
Then Lily spoke.
“She made the bruises.”
We both turned toward her.
“What?” Ruiz asked.
Lily looked scared.
“She hit herself.”
My skin prickled.
“When?”
“In the bathroom.”
Ruiz leaned closer.
“Lily, tell me exactly what you saw.”
“She had a makeup box.”
“Makeup?”
Lily nodded.
“She put purple stuff on her arm.”
I stared at Ruiz.
Fake bruises.
Melissa had prepared this.
She had planned the accusations.
The ticket.
The papers.
The escape.
This wasn’t something she invented after I caught her.
It had been building for weeks.
Maybe months.
Then Lily whispered something else.
“There are videos.”
Ruiz froze.
“What videos?”
“Melissa made me practice.”
My mouth went dry.
“Practice what?”
Lily looked at me.
May you like
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Saying Daddy hurts me.”
