Chapter 8: What Jake Said
They brought Jake in at two in the afternoon.
Patricia had arranged for Emily to wait in a separate room — a small office down the hall with a window that looked out onto the parking lot.
I sat with her.
We didn't talk much.
She watched the lot.
I watched her.
At three-fifteen, Patricia came in.
"They've finished the first round of questioning," she said.
"Jake's attorney is requesting a break." She sat down across from Emily.
"Jake has confirmed the debt.
He's confirmed the signature.
He's claiming he believed the agreement was a formality — that Royce would never actually act on it."
"He believed that," Emily said flatly.
"That's his position, yes."
"And the recordings Michael provided?"
"His attorney is challenging their admissibility.
But the detective I spoke with says the content is significant regardless.
There are at least two calls where Royce explicitly describes what he expects as repayment if Jake defaults." Patricia paused.
"Jake is heard agreeing to the terms."
Emily looked out the window.
A car pulled into the lot below.
A woman got out, opened the back door, lifted a small child onto her hip.
The child pointed at something.
The woman laughed.
"Can I see him?" Emily said.
Patricia hesitated.
"That's not advisable right now—"
"I'm not asking for your advice on this one." Emily turned from the window.
"I need to look at him.
I need to ask him one thing and hear him answer it to my face."
Patricia studied her for a moment.
"I'll be in the room."
"Fine."
They brought Jake into the conference room ten minutes later.
His attorney — a compact man in a gray suit named Ferraro — sat beside him.
Patricia sat beside Emily.
I stood near the door.
Jake looked like he hadn't slept.
His tie was loosened.
There was something around his eyes that I recognized from the backyard the day before — that careful, controlled expression that was starting to crack at the edges.
He looked at Emily the way a man looks when he knows he has already lost something and is only now understanding its full weight.
"Em," he said.
"Don't," she said quietly.
"I have one question."
Ferraro started to speak.
Patricia put one hand flat on the table and he stopped.
Emily leaned forward slightly.
"When you signed that document in March," she said, "did you understand what you were putting at risk?"
Jake was quiet.
"Jake."
"Yes," he said.
"I understood."
"And you signed it anyway."
He looked down at the table.
"I thought I could fix it before it became real."
"You thought you could fix it." She let that sit in the air for a moment.
"I was three months pregnant.
You knew that.
You sat across from me at dinner every night for five months and you let me believe we were safe." Her voice was still level.
"I decorated a nursery, Jake.
I picked out a name."
Jake's jaw worked.
His eyes were wet.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"I know you are." She stood up.
"But sorry doesn't tell me whether my child is safe.
Sorry doesn't explain why a man I've never met felt entitled to send a threat to my mother's phone." She picked up her bag.
"Your attorney can talk to Patricia from here."
She walked to the door.
Jake stood up.
"Emily—"
"Sit down, Mr.
Calloway." Patricia's voice was quiet and absolute.
He sat down.
I followed Emily into the hallway.
She walked to the end of it, stopped at the window there, and stood with her back to me for a moment.
Her shoulders rose once.
Then settled.
She turned around.
Her eyes were dry.
May you like
"Okay," she said.
"What's next?"
