Chapter 17 - The Man I Married
Daniel was standing near Tessa's building entrance, holding a grocery-store bouquet. I called the nonemergency police number before opening the downstairs intercom.
"Leave," I said.
He tilted his face toward the speaker. "Emily, just five minutes."
"My lawyer can speak to yours."
"I brought flowers."
"You let your mother burn my hand. Flowers are not the next step."
His face changed. Not with shame, at first. With irritation that I wouldn't follow the scene he'd rehearsed.
"You don't understand what debt does to people," he said. "I thought if we fixed the business, I could give you everything back."
"You can't give back something you never owned."
"Mom said the house was family property."
"You were in the room when Robert signed the deed."
He looked away. That was the end of the lie.
"I loved you," he said.
I remembered the first winter we'd shared a cramped apartment, eating noodles from the pot because we hadn't unpacked bowls. I had loved that man. I couldn't find him in the person standing beneath Tessa's security light.
"Did you know Teresa would hurt me on Christmas?" I asked again.
He stared at the flowers. "I told her to make you leave. I didn't tell her to burn you."
"You told her not to leave marks."
He looked up sharply. He hadn't known I had the messages.
"Emily, please."
I ended the call. A patrol officer arrived minutes later, and Daniel left without entering the building.
That night Nina phoned with an update. The lender's insurer had assigned independent counsel to examine the forged mortgage. Stonefield had opened an internal investigation into Grant.
"Your evidence is strong," she said. "But the formal process could take months."
I sat with my hand elevated on a pillow and watched snow gather beneath the streetlights.
May you like
Then Daniel sent one last message.
I DID THE POWER OF ATTORNEY. MOM DOESN'T KNOW EVERYTHING.
