Chapter 7 - The Call I Should Have Made
I didn't sleep that night.
I sat at the kitchen table with the shoebox open in front of me and the old phone charging on the counter, and I listened to that voicemail three more times.
'Your results are clear.
You were never sterile.
Call me.'
Every time I heard it, I felt something shift in my chest, like a door opening in a dark hallway.
So that's why he told Ysolde he couldn't have children.
It wasn't a lie to keep her close.
It was a lie to explain away me.
The life inside me.
The insurance policy.
All of it.
By morning, I had made a decision.
I wasn't going to sit in that house and wait for Beckett to charm me into forgetting what I'd seen.
I wasn't going to let him turn this into a fight about my hormones or my imagination.
I was going to treat it like what it was.
A crime.
I took pictures of everything.
The policy with my name on it.
The forged loan documents with my signature copied wrong.
The baseboard pushed loose behind the crib.
The voicemail, playing on the old phone while I recorded it with my own.
Then I packed a small bag, just enough for a few days, and I left.
I drove to my friend Rosalind's house on the other side of town.
She took one look at my face and didn't ask a single question.
She just opened the door and said, 'You're staying here.'
That afternoon, I called a lawyer.
His name was Mr. Vance, and Eldon had given me his number with a warning.
'He's expensive,' Eldon said. 'But he doesn't scare.'
Mr. Vance listened to me for twenty minutes without interrupting.
When I finished, he was quiet for a moment.
'Mrs. Ariella,' he said, 'the insurance policy and the forged loan are serious.
Very serious.
But they're hard to prove in a vacuum.
You need a witness.
Someone who can tie your husband to a specific act.'
I told him about the cousin.
Beckett's cousin, who owned the subcontracting company on Grant's last job site.
'That's a start,' he said. 'But we need something concrete.'
So I did the thing I should have done three years ago.
I called the state office and requested a copy of the accident report from my brother's death.
It arrived by email two days later.
I printed it out and read it at Rosalind's kitchen table while she made tea.
The report said the guardrail on the third floor had failed.
A bolt had been removed from its bracket.
The subcontractor on file was a company called Halston Equipment.
The owner was a man named Dov Beckett.
My husband's cousin.
The report also noted that the equipment had been inspected the morning of the accident and passed.
But one of the bolts was missing.
I sat back in my chair and felt the baby move, slow and heavy, like a hand pressing against the inside of me.
'Rosalind,' I said. 'I need to borrow your car.'
She looked at me. 'Where are you going?'
'To see my husband,' I said.
I drove to our house and parked across the street.
I didn't go in.
I called Beckett and told him to come outside.
He came out on the porch and stood there, hands in his pockets, like a man waiting for a bus.
'What's this about?' he said.
I held up the accident report.
'I know about Halston Equipment,' I said.
His face changed.
Not much — a tightening around the mouth, a flicker in the eyes.
But it changed.
'You don't know what you're talking about,' he said.
'I know you lied to Ysolde,' I said. 'I know about the insurance policy.
I know about the loan.
And I know your cousin owned the company that was on Grant's site.'
He took a step toward me.
'You're going to lose everything,' he said quietly.
'You're going to lose the baby, the house, everything.
Because you're not thinking straight.'
I felt my hands shake, but I didn't move.
'I'm not afraid of you,' I said.
And then, behind him, a car door opened.
Ysolde stepped out with a folder in her hand.
She walked up the driveway and stood beside me.
'I found the cousin,' she said.
