Chapter 6
The front doors opened before I reached them. Two officers stepped inside, followed by paramedics carrying a medical kit. Cold night air rushed into the house, smelling faintly of eucalyptus and rain on pavement.
The sight of uniforms changed everything.
Voices overlapped.
Genesis began explaining before anyone asked her a question. “There has been a misunderstanding. My daughter-in-law became upset during dinner and—”
“She was hit with a plate,” Marcus said.
Genesis stared at him as if he had struck her.
One officer, a woman with calm eyes and dark hair pulled tightly back, lifted a hand. “One person at a time.”
The other officer approached me. “Ma’am, are you Elaine Vale?”
I hesitated at the name.
Vale.
Jackson’s name. His family’s name. A name I had worn like a coat in bad weather, believing it protected me. Tonight, it felt soaked through and heavy.
“Yes,” I said.
The paramedic guided me to a bench in the foyer. She was gentle, efficient, and blessedly direct.
“I’m going to look at the cut,” she said. “You may need stitches.”
Jackson stood in the dining room entrance with his arms crossed, trying to look offended rather than frightened. But his eyes betrayed him. They kept flicking toward the table, toward my handbag, toward the recorder.
The female officer noticed.
“What is that device?” she asked.
No one answered.
I closed my eyes briefly.
This was the point of no return.
Months earlier, I had bought the recorder after a conversation with my attorney, Naomi Patel. Not because I wanted drama. Not because I had some elaborate plan. I bought it because Jackson had developed a terrifying talent for denying things immediately after saying them.
He had called me unstable, then insisted he had never said it.
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He had threatened to drain our joint account, then laughed when I repeated the words.
He had told me his mother deserved my apartment more than I did, then acted wounded when I said I felt unsafe.
