Chapter 18
In its place was a sheet of folded paper.
Not a legal document. Not a threat.
A note.
Written in Genesis’s elegant hand.
Elaine,
You have always misunderstood what family requires.
G.
Claire read it over my shoulder and whispered a word she almost never used.
The officer bagged the note.
I stood in the middle of my apartment, surrounded by the life I had built before Jackson, and felt something inside me harden—not into bitterness, but into clarity.
Genesis had been here.
Or someone had come for her.
Either way, the polite fiction was over.
This was not an emotional dispute. It was not a misunderstanding. It was not a difficult mother-in-law pushing boundaries.
It was a plan.
And I had interrupted it.
We collected my laptop, medication, documents, and clothes. Before leaving, I paused by the window.
The city below moved in miniature. Cars. Pedestrians. A cyclist waiting at a red light. Ordinary lives continuing beneath an extraordinary day.
I remembered buying the apartment. I had been thirty-one, terrified of the mortgage, proud in a way I could barely admit out loud. I painted the bedroom myself and slept on a mattress on the floor for six months. I learned the sounds of the pipes, the stubborn window latch, the way winter light turned the walls pale gold.
This place had held me before Jackson.
It would hold me after him.
Back at Claire’s house that evening, Naomi called again.
Her voice was different this time. Controlled, but tight.
“Elaine, Marcus’s attorney contacted me.”
“Marcus has an attorney?”
“He does now.”
Claire and I exchanged a look.
Naomi continued, “He found documents in Genesis’s study after officers left. He did not remove originals, but he photographed several items before securing the room. He has turned the photographs over through counsel.”
“What items?”
“A list of properties,” Naomi said. “Names. Addresses. Estimated values.”
My skin prickled.
“My apartment?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“And others?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
May you like
Naomi paused.
“At least nine.”
