Chapter 7 - The Garage
I ran.
Megan grabbed Noah and followed.
“Stay inside!”
“No.”
“Megan—”
“I’m not being left alone.”
Fair.
I grabbed a baseball bat from the hall closet and opened the garage door.
Empty.
No Mom.
No Rachel.
Both cars were there.
Nothing moved.
Then I smelled gasoline.
“Back up.”
Megan stopped.
“What?”
“Take Noah outside.”
She didn’t argue.
I checked beneath my SUV.
Nothing.
Then beneath Megan’s car.
A dark puddle spread across the concrete.
Not gasoline.
Brake fluid.
My chest tightened.
I crouched.
A line beneath her vehicle had been cut.
Cleanly.
Deliberately.
“Megan.”
She saw my face.
“What?”
“Call 911.”
“What happened?”
“Now.”
Police arrived twelve minutes later.
An officer named Martinez examined the line.
“You’re not driving this anywhere.”
“Could it have broken naturally?”
He looked at me.
“Possible.”
Then he pointed.
“But this edge looks pretty clean.”
Megan sat on the front steps holding Noah.
He was playing with my controller again.
He had refused to leave it behind.
It almost made me smile.
Almost.
Officer Martinez took statements.
We played recordings.
We showed him photographs.
The custody papers.
The camera log.
But recordings of threats weren’t the same as proof someone cut a brake line.
Mom denied everything when police called her.
Rachel denied everything too.
Then Mom called me.
I put her on speaker.
“You called police on your own mother?”
“Did you touch Megan’s car?”
“No.”
“Were you in my garage?”
“No.”
“Did you disable my cameras?”
“No.”
“Then how did you know I was leaving?”
Silence.
Only three seconds.
But three seconds was enough.
“I guessed.”
“You spoke through Noah’s monitor.”
“I wanted to talk.”
“How did you connect to it?”
Another silence.
“I helped you set it up.”
“That was a year ago.”
“So?”
“I changed the password.”
Mom laughed.
“Megan probably gave it to me.”
Megan shouted from the porch.
“I did not!”
Mom’s tone changed.
“You see what she’s doing? She’s making you suspicious of everyone.”
“No. Your actions are doing that.”
“You always were ungrateful.”
There it was again.
A childhood weapon.
When Dad died, Mom reminded Rachel and me constantly how much she had sacrificed.
Food.
School.
Sports.
College.
Love became a debt.
And she kept the ledger.
“I’m hanging up.”
“You leave town with that woman and she’ll isolate you completely.”
“That woman is my wife.”
“She’s temporary.”
“No.”
“You’ll see.”
I ended the call.
Officer Martinez looked at me.
“She always talk like that?”
“Apparently.”
He handed me a card.
“If anything else happens, call.”
We rented a car and drove to Ryan’s cabin.
I watched the mirror the entire way.
No familiar vehicles followed us.
By midnight, Noah was asleep.
Megan sat near the fireplace.
I made coffee neither of us drank.
“I deleted the monitor account.”
“Good.”
“Changed every password.”
“Good.”
“I froze our credit too.”
She looked at me.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know what else Mom accessed.”
Megan stared into the fire.
“There’s something else.”
My stomach sank.
“Of course there is.”
“This part isn’t about Linda.”
“What is it?”
“Rachel.”
She picked up her phone.
“She came to see me at the pediatrician’s office last month.”
“I thought you ran into her.”
“No.”
“She followed me.”
“Why?”
Megan opened a video.
Security footage.
Rachel stood in a hallway talking to someone wearing a white coat.
I leaned closer.
“Who’s that?”
“Dr. Collins.”
Noah’s pediatrician.
“What were they talking about?”
“I didn’t know.”
She handed me an email she had received that morning.
It was from Dr. Collins.
Megan, please call me immediately. I believe someone attempted to alter Noah’s medical records.
I looked at the sleeping hallway where my son lay.
And suddenly this wasn’t family drama anymore.
May you like
Someone was building a case.
Piece by piece.
