Chapter 5: Already in Town
I took the phone from her hand.
Read the message again.
Then I set it face-down on the table, exactly as she had, and looked at her.
"When did this come in?"
"Just now."
"Before that.
When did he first say he was coming?"
"The call last week.
He said he'd give me a few days to think about the new amount." She paused.
"I suppose I've run out of days."
I stood up and walked to the window again — not to look at anything, just to move.
My mind was running through options the way it does at work when a deadline shifts without warning.
Assess.
Prioritize.
Don't react before you think.
"Does anyone here know about him?" I asked.
"The staff.
The director."
"No."
"Does he know which facility you're in?"
A pause that told me everything.
"He's the one who suggested it," she said quietly.
"Years ago.
When I was first looking.
He said he knew of a good place.
I didn't realize until later that he'd chosen it because he could find me here easily."
I turned around.
"He picked your care facility."
"I should have moved.
I thought about it.
But my doctor is nearby, and I know the staff, and I told myself the payments were keeping him at a distance." She looked at her lap.
"I told myself a lot of things."
I crossed the room and sat down directly in front of her.
Close enough that she had to look at me.
"Listen to me," I said.
"We are not paying him another dollar.
Not one.
Do you understand?"
"He'll come here."
"Let him come."
"You don't know what he's like."
"Then tell me." I kept my voice level.
"Not the outline.
Not what you've been protecting me from.
Tell me exactly what he did.
To Dad.
To that woman in Portland.
All of it.
Because I can't help you if I'm only working with half the picture."
She was quiet for a long moment.
Her fingers moved to the envelopes again — that same slow tracing along the sealed edges, like she was reading something written there that no one else could see.
"The woman in Portland," she said finally.
"Her name was Carol.
She had two daughters.
She met Daniel when he was working for a contractor out there — he was charming, she said.
Attentive.
He moved in within three months." She stopped.
"He convinced her to put his name on her bank account.
Said it was easier for bills.
Said it was what couples did."
I kept my face still.
"He emptied it," she said.
"While she was at work one morning.
Took everything and left a note saying he'd gone to visit family.
She called the police.
They said it was complicated because his name was on the account." She looked up at me.
"That's when she wrote to us.
She was trying to find him.
Trying to get her money back.
Trying to protect her daughters."
"And then her letters stopped."
"Yes."
"Did you ever try to find out why?"
"I hired someone.
A private investigator.
Briefly." She pressed her lips together.
"He found that Carol had moved.
New address, no forwarding.
He thought she might have left the state.
He thought she was frightened enough to start over somewhere else."
"Or Daniel found out she'd contacted you."
"Yes." Her voice was very quiet.
"Or that."
A knock at the door.
We both went still.
It wasn't the soft tap of a nurse checking in.
It was three sharp knocks.
Deliberate.
The kind that expected an answer.
My stepmom's face went the color of old paper.
I stood up, walked to the door, and opened it.
The man in the hallway was around fifty.
Well-dressed in a way that looked practiced rather than natural — pressed shirt, good shoes, the kind of easy smile that takes years to perfect.
May you like
He looked at me the way someone looks at a door that wasn't supposed to be open.
"You must be my sister," he said.
