Chapter 3: What She Said She Knew
I set my phone face-down on the kitchen counter and looked at Amelia.
"She called you directly?"
Amelia nodded.
Her backpack was still on her shoulders.
She hadn't even taken her shoes off.
"She said, 'Tell your mother to drop this or everyone is going to find out what your father did.'" Amelia's voice was barely above a whisper.
"Mom, what does that mean?
What did Dad do?"
"Nothing," I said.
"Go upstairs.
Let me handle this."
She didn't move right away.
She stood there looking at me the way she used to when she was small and could tell I wasn't saying everything.
Then she slipped off her backpack and went upstairs without another word.
I picked up the phone and called Clark.
He answered on the second ring.
I could hear the television in the background — he'd been resting in the bedroom all afternoon.
"Katherine called Amelia," I said.
A pause.
"What?"
"She called our fifteen-year-old daughter and told her to warn me off.
She said she'd tell the family something about you."
The television went quiet.
I heard him sit up.
"What exactly did she say?"
I repeated it word for word.
When I finished, he didn't speak for a moment.
"She's bluffing," he said finally.
"Clark."
"She's bluffing, Diane.
There's nothing to tell."
"Then why do you sound like that?"
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"I'll call her," he said.
"No.
I don't want you stressed.
You have a treatment Thursday."
"Diane—"
"I mean it.
I'll handle it.
I just needed to know if there was anything real behind what she said."
He exhaled slowly.
"There isn't.
I promise you."
I believed him.
I did.
But something in the pause before that answer sat in my chest for the rest of the evening like a stone I couldn't move.
I called Katherine back myself.
She picked up on the first ring, which told me she'd been waiting.
"I want to be very clear," I said.
"What you said to my daughter was out of line.
She is fifteen years old.
You do not call her.
You do not use her to send me messages.
That stops now."
"Then drop the invoice," Katherine said.
Smooth.
Unbothered.
"Simple as that."
"The invoice stands.
Amelia worked eight Saturdays.
She is owed five hundred and fifty-two dollars."
"Oh, please.
She's a child.
She was doing the family a favor."
"You offered her twelve dollars an hour.
That is a contract.
It doesn't matter how old she is."
"A contract." Katherine laughed.
"You're going to stand there and talk to me about contracts while my brother is sick and you're making this family look ridiculous over a few hundred dollars?"
"Your brother being sick is exactly why that money matters.
You know what our situation is.
You've known for months.
And you still didn't pay her."
The laugh faded.
"Send that invoice to the family," Katherine said, her voice dropping, "and I will make sure everyone knows what I know.
And I know enough, Diane.
Believe me."
"Then say it now.
Say it to me directly."
Silence.
"That's what I thought," I said, and ended the call.
I stood in the kitchen for a long moment.
The refrigerator hummed.
Down the street, a neighbor's dog barked twice and went quiet.
I didn't know if Katherine was bluffing.
But I knew one thing with absolute certainty: she had just called my daughter to frighten a child into carrying a threat.
Whatever she thought she had on Clark, she had already shown me exactly who she was.
I opened my laptop and pulled up the email I had drafted to Clark's mother, his aunt, and his two cousins.
The invoice was attached.
The note was attached.
My finger hovered over the send button.
Then my phone buzzed.
A text from a number I didn't recognize.
May you like
*You should ask Clark about the money he borrowed from Katherine two years ago.
The money he never told you about.*
