I almost smiled.
“That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it?”
His face went pale.
The officer noticed.
“Where are these recordings, Faye?”
“In my room.”
Edric immediately shook his head.
“No. She doesn’t have anything.”
“You just said I was lying.”
“I said she was confused.”
“You asked where they were.”
He said nothing.
Chloe looked at me.
And for the first time in years, I saw something close to pride in her eyes.
Not because I had outsmarted him.
Because I had finally stopped being afraid of him.
The officer turned to her partner.
“Secure the house.”
Edric’s voice rose.
“You can’t search my home without a warrant.”
The officer calmly replied, “We can secure a scene while we obtain one.”
Edric looked toward my mother.
“Brenda.”
She didn’t answer.
“Brenda!”
She began crying harder.
He stared at her as though she had betrayed him.
Maybe she had.
Maybe everyone eventually did.
The officers escorted him from the room.
As he passed my bed, he stopped.
The security guard immediately moved between us.
Edric looked around him.
Then at me.
His voice dropped so low that only I could hear.
“You have no idea what you’ve started.”
I felt a chill run through me.
Because I knew Edric.
And I knew that wasn’t an empty threat.
It was a promise.
Then he was gone.
The door closed behind him.
I stared at it.
For several seconds, I couldn’t breathe.
Chloe reached for me.
“Faye.”
I looked at her.
“We did it.”
I shook my head.
“Not yet.”
She frowned.
“What do you mean?”
I looked toward the hallway.
“He was scared of the recordings.”
“So?”
“So he wasn’t scared of being arrested.”
Chloe went still.
“He was scared of what was on them.”
Neither of us spoke.
Because suddenly the recordings weren’t just evidence of what Edric had done to us.
They might contain something else.
Something he had spent years making sure nobody heard.
The police returned to the house before dawn.
We weren’t there.
We were taken to a private room while social services were contacted, statements were recorded, and doctors treated the injuries we had learned to ignore.
But my mind was somewhere else.
It was in our bedroom.
Under the floorboard.
Beside the heating vent.
Where the old phone waited.
At least, I hoped it was still there.
Because if Edric had discovered it before the police arrived, everything could be gone.
The recordings.
The proof.
Our only weapon.
Around five in the morning, a detective came into the room.
Her name was Detective Lena Shaw.
She sat beside my bed instead of standing over me.
“I want to ask you about the recordings.”
I nodded.
“They’re automatically uploaded.”
“To where?”
“A private cloud account.”
“Whose account?”
“My father’s.”
That made her pause.
“Your biological father?”
“Yes.”
“David Morgan?”
“Yes.”
She wrote something down.
“Is anyone else able to access the account?”
“Uncle Alan.”
She looked up.
“Alan Morgan?”
I nodded.
“He’s my father’s brother.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did you last speak with him?”
I looked at Chloe.
She was awake now, listening.
“Months ago,” I said.
Detective Shaw’s expression changed.
“Months?”
“Our mother stopped letting us talk to him.”
“Why?”
“She said he was trying to turn us against her.”
Chloe whispered, “That wasn’t true.”
Detective Shaw looked at her.
“You’re certain?”
“He told us to call him if we were ever in danger.”
She looked back at me.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I swallowed.
“Because Edric took our phones.”
Detective Shaw wrote that down.
Then she asked something that made my stomach tighten.
“Did your father leave you money?”
I stared at her.
“How do you know about that?”
She didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, she closed her notebook.
“Because someone has already asked about it.”
The room suddenly felt colder.
“Who?”
“We’re still finding that out.”
Chloe sat up slightly.
“What does our money have to do with this?”
Detective Shaw looked at both of us.
“That’s what concerns me.”
She leaned forward.
“Your father established a trust shortly before his death.”
“Yes.”
“It becomes accessible when you turn eighteen.”
“Tomorrow,” Chloe whispered.
Detective Shaw nodded.
“Your eighteenth birthday is tomorrow.”
I looked at the clock.
September seventh.
My birthday.
Our birthday.
For years, I’d thought turning eighteen meant freedom.
I had imagined a cake.
A cheap apartment.
College applications.
A life where nobody could tell us when to sleep or where to go.
I’d never imagined police officers, hospital beds, and evidence bags.
Detective Shaw continued.
“According to preliminary financial records, your father’s trust is considerably larger than your mother has claimed.”
My heart pounded.
“How much?”
She hesitated.
“Enough to make someone very interested in keeping you under control.”
Chloe looked at me.
I thought about Edric.
His locked doors.
His threats.
His obsession with obedience.
And suddenly something he’d said months ago came back to me.
I had forgotten it until that moment.
We had been sitting at the dinner table.
Edric had been drinking.
He had looked at Chloe and said:
“You girls have no idea what your father left behind.”
At the time, I thought he meant money.
Now I wasn’t sure.
Detective Shaw watched my face.
“You remembered something.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
I told her.
She listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she stood.
“I need to make a call.”
She walked toward the door.
Then stopped.
“Faye?”
“Yes?”
“If those recordings exist, don’t access the account yourself.”
“Why?”
“Because we don’t know who else may have access.”
She left.
Chloe stared at me.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
I looked at her.
She whispered:
“Dad.”
My chest tightened.
Our father had been dead for nearly two years.
But suddenly it felt as though he had left us one final message.
Not in a letter.
Not in a photograph.
In a cloud account.
Waiting for us to become old enough to find it.
At 6:17 a.m., the detective returned.
She wasn’t alone.
A man stood behind her.
Older.
Tall.
Gray at the temples.
Wearing a dark jacket despite the warmth outside.
Chloe’s eyes widened.
I couldn’t move.
The man stared at us.
Then his face crumpled.
“Girls.”
I knew that voice.
We both did.
“Uncle Alan?”
He crossed the room.
For one second, I thought he was going to hug us.
Instead, he stopped just short of our beds.
As if afraid touching us would hurt.
His eyes moved over our injuries.
His jaw tightened.
“I should have come sooner.”
Chloe began crying.
“So should Mom.”
Alan closed his eyes.
“I know.”
I looked at Detective Shaw.
“You said he was overseas.”
“He returned last night.”
Alan looked at me.
“Your father warned me this could happen.”
My blood ran cold.
“What?”
