Chapter 6: The Lawyer's Offer
The call came the next morning.
She was at her father's kitchen table, both hands around a mug of tea, when his phone rang.
He answered it, listened for ten seconds, and then set it on the table between them on speaker.
"—simply asking for a conversation," the voice said.
"My client loves his wife.
He loves his child.
He believes this situation has been badly mishandled by everyone involved, and he would like the opportunity to address that directly."
Her Father looked at her across the table.
"What kind of conversation?" he said.
"A private one.
No police.
No notebooks.
Just two families trying to find a reasonable path forward before this becomes something no one can walk back from."
"It's already something no one can walk back from."
A brief pause.
"Mr.—"
"Walsh," her Father said.
"My name is Frank Walsh.
And my daughter is seven months pregnant with bruises documented across fourteen months.
What exactly is your client proposing?"
Another pause.
Longer.
"He's prepared to offer full financial support.
Prenatal care, delivery costs, the first two years of the child's life.
He's also prepared to agree to a temporary separation — his idea, not ours — while both parties take time to—"
"He wants her to drop the report," Frank said.
"He wants to resolve this privately."
Frank looked at his daughter again.
She was looking at the phone.
"Tell your client," she said, "that I have a second notebook.
And photographs.
And a doctor who filed a mandatory report because she couldn't reach me for three weeks." She set down her mug.
"Tell him that the next conversation I have will be with the detective.
Not with him."
Silence on the line.
"Mrs.
Hargrove, I strongly advise you to consider—"
"She's not Mrs.
Hargrove right now," Frank said.
"She's my daughter.
In my house.
And this conversation is over."
He ended the call.
She looked at the phone for a moment.
Then at her father.
"He thought I'd take the money," she said.
"He always thought money was the answer to everything." Frank picked up his own mug.
"His mother taught him that."
She almost smiled.
It didn't quite make it, but it was close.
The detective called an hour later.
The prepaid phone had been examined under emergency provisions given the active welfare investigation.
The seventeen messages were from a woman named Carla Sims.
The messages spanned eight months.
The last one was sent the night before the baby shower.
Detective Paulson read her a single line from it, the one that mattered most.
*Does she know yet?
About the account?*
She sat very still.
"What account?" she asked.
"That's what we're looking into," the detective said.
"Do you have access to any joint financial accounts?"
"He handles the finances.
He said it was easier."
A beat.
"Mrs.
Hargrove, I'd like you to come in this afternoon if you're able.
Bring any financial documents you have access to.
Bank statements, insurance papers, anything."
"I don't have any.
He keeps them."
"That's all right.
We have other ways." Another beat.
"Are you somewhere safe right now?"
"I'm at my father's."
"Good.
Stay there."
She set the phone down.
Her father was watching her from across the table.
"There's a woman," she said.
"And an account I don't know about."
He didn't look surprised.
That was almost worse — the fact that he didn't look surprised.
"How long have you known?" she asked.
"I didn't know.
I suspected." He set down his mug.
"About four months ago, you called me.
You said you'd found a receipt in his jacket.
You said he told you it was a work dinner and you believed him.
But you called me anyway."
She remembered the call.
She remembered believing him.
"I should have listened to myself."
"You were trying to hold your marriage together," Frank said.
"That's not a flaw.
That's what people do when they love someone." He paused.
"Even when that person doesn't deserve it."
She pressed her hand flat against her stomach.
The baby moved — a slow, rolling shift, the kind that had been happening more often in the last week.
May you like
"What happens now?" she asked.
"Now," her father said, "we find out what's in that account."
