Chapter 14 - She Didn’t Want Lily Gone
That message changed the shape of the fear.
Linda didn’t hate Lily.
She hated me.
Or more precisely, she hated my place.
Wife.
Mother.
Gatekeeper to the family she believed belonged to her.
Detective Harper pulled photographs from Linda’s apartment. Hundreds of them.
Ryan as a teenager.
Ryan at college graduation.
Ryan at his wedding to me.
Lily in the hospital.
In almost every recent photograph, Linda stood close to Ryan.
In many, I had been cropped out.
“This isn’t romantic,” Harper warned when Ryan reacted with disgust. “Don’t turn it into something we can’t prove. It may be control. Possession. Family identity.”
Control fit.
After Thomas died, Linda had acted like the center of the Carter family. She planned holidays. Held keys. Knew passwords. Managed traditions.
Then I married Ryan.
Then Lily arrived.
The trust shifted.
The family shifted.
Linda became optional.
She could not tolerate optional.
That evening, Harper called with a break.
Linda had contacted a private investigator three months earlier.
The investigator had refused the job after realizing she wanted him to “document instability” in a pregnant woman with no evidence of misconduct.
He saved their emails.
One line from Linda read:
I DON’T NEED YOU TO FIND SOMETHING. I NEED YOU TO NOTICE WHAT WILL ALREADY BE THERE.
Another read:
THE BABY WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING IF I DON’T ACT FIRST.
The investigator had thought she meant divorce.
We knew better now.
Police traced a recent email Linda sent from a public library computer.
It went to Ryan.
Subject: COME ALONE.
The message contained an address for an old Carter family cabin in Vermont.
Ryan’s father had taken him there every winter when he was a boy.
The last line said:
IF YOU WANT THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR FATHER, DON’T BRING EMMA.
Ryan closed the laptop.
“I’m going.”
May you like
I grabbed his wrist.
“No. You’re not going alone.”
