Chapter 11 - SOMEONE OUTSIDE THE WINDOW
Ryan rushed to the back door. The yard was empty except for the swing Thomas had built, rocking slightly in the wind.
“Don't go outside,” June said. She already had the police on the phone.
Officers checked the block and documented the message. They couldn't tell us who had taken the photograph, but they treated it as part of our complaint. Teresa advised Brooke to stay somewhere safe and stop answering Paige directly.
Brooke moved into June's guest room. She placed her phone on the table as if it were something poisonous.
“Paige told me she loved Ryan,” she said. “I believed her. I wanted to believe her.”
“So did I,” I answered.
The next morning Ryan received a second message, this one from Graham's office. It offered to dismiss the property claim and pay my medical expenses if Ryan signed a statement saying I had stumbled and Paige had tried to catch me.
“They want me to lie about what I saw,” he said.
“And what you heard,” June added.
He forwarded the message to Teresa and wrote back only: CONTACT MY ATTORNEY.
Around noon, Brooke tried to retrieve clothes from her apartment. June went with her. The door wasn't damaged, but somebody had emptied a dresser onto the floor. Her old laptop was gone. The external hard drive that held copies of the wedding photos was missing too.
Brooke sat down hard on the edge of the bed.
“They know where I live.”
May you like
June put an arm around her. “The recordings are backed up. Taking a laptop won't put the words back in Paige's mouth.”
When the police arrived, they found a white rose on Brooke's pillow. Tucked beneath it was the missing corner of my blue envelope.
