Chapter 4
I froze, my hand over my mouth to muffle a scream.
Noah was still asleep in the guest room. If they took him now, I didn’t know when I’d see him again.
Janice stepped past me, straightening her blazer.
“Stay here,” she said. “Let me handle this.”
She opened the door.
“Can I help you?”
Ryan’s eyes narrowed.
“Who are you?”
“Janice Carter. Ms. Hale’s attorney. You must be Deputy Carter.”
She held out her hand. Ryan didn’t take it.
“I have a court order for emergency custody of Noah Carter. Tell Clara to bring him out, or we’ll have to enter the premises.”
“Your order is for temporary physical custody, with supervised exchanges at a neutral location,” Janice said, not backing down. “It does not give you permission to enter this home without a warrant. If you step across this threshold, I’ll file a complaint with internal affairs before you get back to your car.”
Linda stepped forward, her voice shrill.
“She kidnapped my grandson! She’s a danger to him! You have to get him out of there!”
“Ma’am, if you don’t lower your voice, I’ll have you cited for disturbing the peace,” Janice said, calm as ice. “Now, here’s what’s going to happen. Ms. Hale will bring Noah to the police station at 1 p.m. today for a two-hour supervised visit. After that, we’ll see you in court next week for the full hearing. If you have a problem with that, you can call your lawyer.”
Ryan stared at her for a long, tense moment.
Then he smiled. It was that same charming smile I’d fallen in love with, and it made my skin crawl.
“Fair enough,” he said. “1 p.m. At the central station. But Janice? Tell Clara if she tries anything stupid, I will arrest her. And I will take my son. And she will never see him again.”
He turned and walked back to his car, Linda trailing behind him, shooting daggers at the door.
The other deputies followed.
Janice closed the door and locked it, leaning her forehead against the wood.
“Okay,” she said, letting out a breath. “That bought us some time.”
I spent the morning packing a bag for Noah, my hands shaking. I put in his dinosaur pajamas, his favorite stuffed T-Rex, his toothbrush, and a drawing he’d made of our family last month. I stared at the drawing for a long time.
In it, Ryan was smiling. I was smiling. Noah was holding both our hands.
It felt like a lie.
At 12:30 p.m., I woke Noah up and told him he was going to spend a few hours with his dad.
He started crying immediately.
“I don’t want to go! I want to stay with you!”
“I know, baby. But it’s just for a little while. I’ll be right outside the whole time. I promise.”
I hugged him so tight I was afraid I’d break him.
Then Mia drove us to the central police station.
The exchange happened in a small room with a one-way mirror. Ryan was already there, in jeans and a t-shirt now, no badge. Linda sat in the corner, watching me like a hawk.
Noah clung to my neck, sobbing.
“Mommy, don’t let them take me!”
Ryan pried his little fingers off my shirt, gentle but firm.
“Hey, buddy,” he said, soft. “It’s okay. Dad’s got you. We’re going to get ice cream, okay? Your favorite mint chocolate chip.”
Noah looked at me, his face streaked with tears.
“Promise you’ll be here when I get back?”
“I promise. Cross my heart.”
I stood there and watched them lead him out of the room.
The door clicked shut.
And then I broke.
Mia held me while I sobbed in that cold, sterile room, the sound of my own cries echoing off the cinder block walls. I felt helpless. Powerless. Like Ryan had already won.
When I had no tears left, Janice said, “We need to go back to your house. Get your things. Get any evidence we can use. Before they change the locks.”
Mia drove me back to the house an hour later.
The front door was unlocked.
We walked inside, and the first thing I noticed was the kitchen camera.
It was gone.
The little white device that had been mounted above the sink for three years was gone, the wires cut clean, a tiny hole left in the drywall.
“They took the footage,” I whispered.
“Then we find another copy,” Mia said. “Security systems always have cloud backups, right?”
We went through the house room by room.
I packed my clothes, Noah’s clothes, the photo albums, the important papers. In the home office, I turned on our shared laptop. Ryan had never bothered to put a password on it. He’d always said he had nothing to hide.
I opened his browser history.
My stomach dropped.
For the past six months, he’d been searching things like: how to prove a mother is unfit, custody cases favoring fathers, antidepressants and child custody, how to get text messages thrown out of court.
Then I found a hidden folder labeled “Work.”
I opened it.
Inside were dozens of photos.
Photos of me at the grocery store. Photos of me at Noah’s school. Photos of me having lunch with my coworker Jake, sitting across from each other at a diner, laughing.
There were time stamps on every photo.
They’d been taken over the past three months.
Ryan had been following me.
“Mia,” I said, my voice cracking. “Look at this.”
She leaned over my shoulder, and her face went white.
“That son of a bitch,” she said. “He’s going to say you’re having an affair.”
Before I could say anything, we heard the front door open.
Linda’s voice rang through the house.
“Ryan? Are you here? I brought the papers for—”
She stopped when she saw us in the office.
Her face twisted with rage.
“What are you doing here?” she screamed. “This is my house! You’re trespassing!”
She pulled out her phone and dialed 911.
“Hello? Police? There are two women in my house, breaking in and stealing things! Send someone right now!”
Ten minutes later, two cops showed up.
They recognized Linda immediately.
They recognized the name “Deputy Ryan Carter” immediately.
They didn’t even ask for our side of the story.
“Ma’am,” one of them said to me, his hand resting on his taser. “You need to leave. Now. Or we’ll arrest you for breaking and entering.”
“I live here!” I said. “This is my house too!”
“Not according to the court order,” he said. “Now go.”
Mia grabbed my arm and pulled me out before I could argue.
We stood on the lawn, watching as Linda locked the door behind us, smiling through the window.
I got in the car, my hands shaking, and my phone rang.
May you like
It was Jake, my coworker.
“Clara,” he said, his voice urgent. “I just got a call from Ryan Carter. He told my wife we’ve been sleeping together. She just packed a bag and left me. What the hell is going on?”
