Chapter 4: What Mason Knew and Was Afraid to Say
Frederick's fever broke at 2:14 in the morning.
I know because I was sitting in the chair beside his crib when it happened, watching his chest rise and fall, and I checked my phone the moment he stopped making that small tight sound in his sleep and his breathing went loose and easy.
The doctor at urgent care had said it was an ear infection, caught in time, nothing serious.
He said it like it was simple.
I nodded like it was simple.
I sat in that chair for four hours after we got home and did not feel like anything was simple at all.
Amy came to the doorway around two.
"He's cooler," she said.
"Yes."
She leaned against the frame.
She had changed out of the clothes she'd been wearing all day, the ones she'd been cooking in, serving in, cleaning in while our son burned with fever on her lap.
She looked exhausted in a way that went past tired.
"I should have told you sooner," she said.
"About the recording.
About what she said to me."
"Why didn't you?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"Because every time I tried to say something about your mother, you found a reason it wasn't as bad as I thought.
I stopped believing you would hear me."
I didn't answer.
Because she was right, and we both knew it.
I called Mason the next morning.
He picked up on the first ring, like he'd been waiting.
"I need you to tell me everything," I said.
He started talking.
The deed forgery had been Mason's job.
He had a contact at the county recorder's office, a man named Garrett who had processed paperwork incorrectly before and been quietly let go, and who was now doing occasional work for cash.
Teresa had paid Garrett $800 to alter the transfer record.
Mason had delivered the folder.
He had told himself it was a family matter, that Connor would understand eventually, that Teresa knew best.
"She told me you were going to put her in a home," Mason said.
"She said Amy had been pushing you to cut the family off and that the house was the only leverage she had left."
"That's not true."
"I know that now."
"What else?"
Silence on the line.
"Mason.
What else?"
"She has a second folder.
Not the deed.
Something else.
She put it together about eight months ago.
I don't know exactly what's in it, but she told Betsy it was insurance.
She said if you ever tried to act against her, she would use it to make Amy look like the problem."
My hand tightened on the phone.
"Where is it?"
"I don't know.
She kept it at her apartment.
Connor, I'm telling you this because what happened yesterday was not what I signed up for.
Frederick is one year old.
Amy was sitting on a bucket in the kitchen.
I didn't — " He stopped.
"I should have said something a long time ago."
I thanked him and ended the call.
Amy was in the kitchen when I came downstairs.
She had made coffee and was standing at the counter with both hands around her mug, looking out the window at the backyard.
The same backyard she had glanced toward yesterday when she said *she's going to be angry*, like my mother's anger was a weather system she had learned to track.
"There's a second folder," I told her.
"Teresa has something she planned to use against you."
Amy set her mug down.
"I know," she said.
I stared at her.
"She showed it to me.
Three months ago.
She sat down at this table and opened it and told me to look at it carefully, because this was what would happen to me if I caused problems." Amy's voice was steady.
Completely steady.
"It had screenshots of conversations I'd had with my sister.
Old messages, from before Frederick was born, when I was struggling and scared and saying things I would never say now.
She had printed them out and highlighted sections."
"How did she get them?"
"She had Mason go through my phone one night when I was asleep."
The kitchen felt very still.
"Amy—"
"I want to see a lawyer today," she said.
"Not tomorrow.
Today."
She picked up her mug again and finished her coffee.
Outside, a car slowed at the end of our street.
It didn't stop.
But I watched it until it turned the corner.
That evening, my phone rang.
Teresa.
I let it ring through.
Then it rang again.
Then a text arrived.
*Connor I am your mother.
Whatever Mason told you is a lie.
He is trying to protect himself.
Call me.
We need to fix this before it goes further.
I have things that will change how you see all of this.
Do not do anything until we have spoken.*
I read it once.
Then I forwarded it to the lawyer Amy had already called.
Her name was Patricia Holt.
May you like
She had an appointment for us at nine the next morning.
What Teresa didn't know was that Patricia Holt had spent eleven years as a prosecutor before going into family law.
