Chapter 4: The Man Who Came to the Door
Marcus didn't sleep.
He sat at the kitchen table after Vanessa went upstairs, the documents spread in front of him, and he went through everything twice.
The financial records first.
Then the photographs.
Then the guardianship paperwork, which he read slowly, every clause, every date, every signature.
An attorney named R.
Calloway had filed the paperwork.
The filing date was six weeks ago.
There was a court date listed — forty-one days from now.
He hadn't known.
He had been living in this house, eating dinner at this table, and forty-one days from now a court was scheduled to consider transferring custody of his daughter to a man he had never met.
At two in the morning, Elijah appeared in the kitchen doorway.
"Dad."
Marcus looked up.
"You should be asleep."
"I couldn't." Elijah came and sat in the chair across from him — the same chair Vanessa had sat in.
He was eight years old and he sat like someone much older, hands in his lap, watching his father carefully.
"Is Zoe going to be taken away?"
"No."
"You promise?"
"I promise." Marcus closed the folder.
"How long have you known about the safe?"
"A few months.
We saw her open it once when she didn't know we were there.
She heard us and got really angry." He paused.
"She said if we told you, something bad would happen to our family."
"She said that to you directly."
Elijah nodded.
Marcus kept his voice level.
"You did the right thing tonight.
Both of you."
"She's going to be so mad at me."
"That's not your problem to carry.
That's mine." He reached across and put his hand briefly on his son's arm.
"Go back to bed.
I mean it."
Elijah went.
Marcus picked up the second cellphone and turned it over in his hands.
He had a friend — Ray, who he'd known since college, who now worked in digital forensics.
He sent a text from his own phone: *I need a favor.
Not a small one.
Can you call me in the morning?*
The reply came back in four minutes.
Ray was apparently also awake at two in the morning.
*Call me now.*
Marcus went outside onto the back porch so Vanessa wouldn't hear.
He explained what he had found.
Ray listened without interrupting.
"The phone is locked?"
"Yes."
"Bring it to me tomorrow.
Don't plug it in, don't try to force it, don't let it run out of battery.
Just bring it as it is."
"Okay."
"Marcus." Ray paused.
"The guardianship filing.
Do you have the attorney's name?"
"R.
Calloway."
A silence.
"Richard Calloway?"
"It just says R.
Calloway."
"I know a Richard Calloway.
Family law.
He's aggressive and he's good." Another pause.
"You need your own attorney before the end of this week.
Not next week.
This week."
"I know."
"Do you have someone?"
"I'll find someone."
"I can give you a name," Ray said.
"She's better than Calloway."
Marcus wrote the name down on the back of an envelope.
He was still holding it when he heard a car pull slowly into his street and stop in front of the house.
He looked through the porch railing.
A man was sitting in the car, engine off, looking at the house.
He sat there for nearly two minutes.
May you like
Then he drove away.
Marcus stood on the porch in the dark, the name of his new attorney in his hand, and he understood that Daniel Holt already knew something had gone wrong.
