Chapter 17 - The Shadow of Doubt
Two weeks later, Emily and Chloe were officially discharged.
We didn't go back to the suburban house where Ryan had burned documents in the fireplace. We went straight to my home—a cozy, three-bedroom craftsman bungalow on the north side of the city, surrounded by towering oak trees and a high wooden privacy fence.
The nursery had been set up in my former guest room. The walls were painted soft sage green, sunlight streamed through the lace curtains, and the crib smelled of fresh cedar and clean cotton.
Emily sat in the rocking chair, feeding Chloe a bottle of formula.
She looked stronger every day, but the emotional scars were beginning to show their true depth. Every time a car slowed down on the street outside, her shoulders tensed. Every time the doorbell rang, her knuckles turned white.
“Em,” I said, setting a cup of chamomile tea on the side table beside her. “You need to sleep. You’ve been awake since four in the morning.”
“I keep thinking about the smoothies, Mom,” Emily whispered, staring down at Chloe’s tiny eyelashes. “Every morning, he kissed my forehead. He handed me the glass. He told me he loved me and that I was going to be an amazing mother. How does someone do that? How do you look someone in the eye every single morning while you’re slowly poisoning them?”
I pulled a footstool over and sat beside her, resting my hand on her knee. “Sociopaths don't see people, Emily. They see obstacles or tools. Ryan saw you as an obstacle to his freedom, and Chloe as an accessory to his escape. It wasn't about who you were. It was about what was broken inside him.”
“What if he finds a way out, Mom? What if his lawyers find a loophole?”
“There are no loopholes in a federal prosecution with sixty pages of digital paper trails,” I said firmly. “Frank told me this morning that Ryan’s trial date has been set for November. He’s being held without bail in a federal detention center across the state line.”
The front door opened. Frank Henderson walked into the hallway, carrying a heavy cardboard banker’s box.
“Afternoon, ladies,” Frank said, his face unusually grave.
I stood up, sensing the shift in the room’s pressure. “Frank? What is that?”
Frank set the box down on the dining table. “Carol... we were executing the final search inventory on Ryan’s mother’s estate yesterday. In the basement of Brenda’s antique shop, behind a false wall behind the furnace.”
“What did you find?”
Frank looked at Emily, hesitating. “Emily, maybe you should take Chloe into the nursery.”
“No,” Emily said, standing up, holding Chloe firmly against her chest. Her voice wasn't trembling anymore. It had the same steel I had carried for thirty years. “No more secrets, Frank. What did my husband hide in that shop?”
Frank pulled a manila folder from the top of the box.
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“Ryan wasn't married once, Emily,” Frank said quietly. “Before he met you in Chicago six years ago... he was married to a woman named Claire Morrison in Seattle.”
***
