Chapter 17 - The Last Demand
Ruth stared at the ringing phone. Moreno took one look at the screen and asked her to let it go to voicemail. Simon left a message accusing us of ruining his business and insisting that Ruth could end the trouble by confirming the option.
"This is the last time you get to choose," he said.
Ruth didn't call back. She gave the recording to the detective and went to sit beside Beth. For a moment mother and daughter looked like two people who had reached the same cliff from opposite directions.
"I'm not signing," Ruth said. "I never was."
Beth lowered her eyes. "I know."
The next afternoon, Simon tried the disputed papers at another title office. Staff recognized the case alert. Officers arrested him there, away from our family.
When Moreno told us, I surprised myself by sitting down and crying. Not because I believed the danger had evaporated, but because I had been holding my breath since Beth fell in the hallway.
Micah called from Aunt Jess's house. He and Leah had told Winnie the immediate danger was over and that the adults still had a lot of work to do.
"She asked whether Aunt Beth is a bad person," Micah said.
"What did you tell her?"
"That people can do terrible things, and we can protect ourselves without pretending they never mattered to us."
I closed my eyes. "That's better than anything I would've thought to say."
Two days later, an officer returned the keys to Rosebridge after the search was complete. We entered together, Ruth and I, with Micah walking ahead to check the rooms. The house smelled like damp wood and forgotten coffee. One chair lay on its side, and a cabinet in the studio had been broken.
But the children's paintings still hung on the wall. Their bright handprints looked almost defiant.
May you like
Ruth touched a paper sunflower. "We're opening again," she said.
Then we found a note Beth had left in the kitchen months earlier, before the lie became a plan: MOM, PLEASE CALL ME. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO FIX THIS.
