Chapter 7: The Message
Daniel saw it before I could turn the phone over.
He picked it up.
Read it twice.
"Give me the number," he said.
"Daniel—"
"Sarah.
Give me the number." He was already standing.
I read it out while he typed it into his own phone.
He went to the hallway.
I heard him on a call, his voice low and controlled, the way it got when he was working hard to stay calm.
I sat at the kitchen table and looked at the message.
*You should have stayed quiet.
This isn't over.*
The number had no name attached.
No profile.
A string of digits that meant nothing.
Daniel came back in.
"I called my father," he said.
"He's calling Patricia's lawyer tonight.
That message is a threat.
It needs to be documented."
"You think it's Raymond."
"Who else would it be."
I thought about Evelyn's smile.
Small and gone in a second.
"Your mother knew my number," I said.
Daniel went still.
"She's had it for four years," I said.
"She's texted me before.
Grocery lists.
Holiday times.
She has my number."
"My mother wouldn't—"
"She dragged me across a floor today, Daniel."
He sat down.
He looked at the phone.
"It could be Raymond," he said.
"If my father's call rattled him.
If he's trying to scare us off before we contact the authorities."
"Or it could be both of them," I said.
"If they're still in contact."
Daniel rubbed his face with both hands.
"I'm going to take a screenshot and send it to my father right now," he said.
"And tomorrow morning, first thing, we're going to Patricia's lawyer together.
Both of us."
"Okay."
"And Sarah—" He looked at me.
"Don't be alone tomorrow.
Don't go anywhere by yourself until we know who sent that."
I nodded.
We didn't sleep much.
I lay in the dark and listened to the house settle.
Daniel was awake beside me.
I could tell by his breathing.
At some point I said: "Do you think she knew about Raymond from the beginning?
That he was going to take the money?"
"No," Daniel said.
"I think she thought she was using him.
And he was using her right back."
"She must have been so certain she was the smartest person in the room."
"She usually is," Daniel said quietly.
"That's the thing.
She usually is."
I thought about that.
"What does she get out of it?" I asked.
"Even if everything had worked.
Even if she'd discredited me, moved the money, kept Raymond happy.
What was the end goal?"
"Control," Daniel said.
"It was always about control.
If she could prove you were a thief, she could push for a separation.
If there was a separation, she could argue I'd been deceived.
If she could argue that, she could try to get any future settlement reduced." He paused.
"She's been planning this for longer than three weeks."
The ceiling was very dark.
"How long?" I asked.
"I don't know," he said.
"But the Raymond account goes back eight months.
So at least that."
Eight months.
I thought about the last eight months.
The dinners I'd attended.
The holidays.
The times Evelyn had hugged me at the door and called me darling.
"She's good," I said.
"Yes," Daniel said.
"She is."
In the morning, my phone rang at six forty-five.
It was Gerald.
"Raymond sent the documents," he said.
May you like
"Patricia's lawyer has them.
She says it's worse than we thought."
