Chapter 6: Kendra's Side of the Wall
I texted back one word: *Where are you?*
Three minutes passed.
Then: *My aunt's house.
Mom's sister.
She called me at seven this morning and told me to come here and not talk to anyone until she arrived.*
Patricia read the exchange over my shoulder.
She was already on her feet.
"Your wife's sister," she said.
"Do you know her?"
"Diane.
We've met a handful of times.
She and my wife are close." I thought about it.
"She's always been on my wife's side of everything."
"Then Kendra is not in a safe place right now." Patricia picked up her jacket from the back of her chair.
"She's in a place where her mother's version of events is the only one she's going to hear."
I typed again: *Kendra, you don't have to stay there.
You can come to me.*
The reply took longer this time.
Nearly five minutes.
*Aunt Diane says I shouldn't talk to you.
She says you're trying to use me against Mom.*
Zoria leaned over and read the message.
She took the phone out of my hand gently and typed herself.
*Kendra, it's Zoria.
Nobody is using you.
You came forward because you knew it was wrong.
That was brave.
That was you.
Don't let anyone take that away from you.*
We waited.
The three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
*She's going to lose everything, isn't she.*
Zoria typed: *I don't know what's going to happen.
But you didn't cause this.
She did.*
Another long pause.
Then: *She told Diane that you and your dad set this up.
That the admissions officer was someone you knew.
That you planted the emails on my phone.*
I looked at Patricia.
"She's already building a counter-narrative," Patricia said.
"She's working on Kendra and Diane simultaneously." She pulled on her jacket.
"We need Kendra's original phone.
The one with the emails.
Before anyone has a chance to interfere with it."
"Kendra won't give it up if Diane is standing next to her."
"Then we don't ask Diane." Patricia looked at me.
"You're her stepfather.
You have standing.
If Kendra is willing, she can walk out of that house on her own.
She's old enough to make that choice."
Zoria was still typing.
*Kendra, I'm not angry at you.
I was never angry at you.
Can you come to us?
Just you.
You don't have to bring anything.*
The reply came faster this time.
*Diane took my phone charger.
She said she was keeping it safe.*
Zoria's jaw tightened.
She typed: *That's not keeping it safe.
That's keeping you from leaving.*
A pause.
Then: *I know.*
Then: *I'm scared.*
Zoria looked at me.
I was already standing.
We were in Patricia's car twelve minutes later, heading across town.
Patricia drove.
Zoria sat in the back with my phone, keeping the conversation with Kendra open, typing steadily, keeping her talking.
"She's sixteen," I said.
"I know," Patricia said.
"My wife knows she's the only witness who came forward voluntarily.
She knows what those emails mean."
"Yes."
"She's not going to let Kendra walk out of that house easily."
Patricia turned onto the highway.
"That's why we're not giving her time to prepare."
Diane's house was a beige colonial on a quiet street.
Two cars in the driveway.
My wife's was one of them.
I hadn't expected that.
"She's already here," I said.
Patricia pulled to the curb half a block down.
She turned off the engine.
"Change of plan," she said.
"We don't go to the door.
If your wife sees you, she will escalate.
She will make it a confrontation in front of Kendra, and Kendra will freeze." She looked at me.
"Text Kendra.
Tell her to come outside.
Tell her you're down the street."
Zoria was already typing.
We watched the front of the house.
A minute passed.
Two.
Then the front door opened.
Kendra came out in a sweatshirt and socks.
No shoes.
She was holding her phone against her chest with both hands.
She looked up and down the street, spotted the car, and walked toward us quickly, her bare feet on the pavement.
She got in the back seat next to Zoria.
For a moment nobody said anything.
Then Kendra held out her phone to Patricia.
"The emails are all there," she said.
"I didn't delete anything.
I didn't let her touch it."
Patricia took the phone carefully, like it was something that could break.
"Good girl," she said quietly.
The front door of Diane's house opened again.
My wife stood in the doorway.
She saw the car.
She saw Kendra was not in the yard.
She took one step onto the porch.
Kendra slid down in the seat.
"Go," she said.
"Please go."
Patricia started the engine.
My wife was still on the porch as we pulled away.
I watched her in the side mirror, standing very still, watching the car until we turned the corner and she disappeared.
My phone buzzed.
A message from my wife's number.
*You just made the worst mistake of your life.*
I put the phone face-down on the seat.
Kendra was crying quietly in the back.
Zoria had her arm around her.
"You're okay," Zoria was saying.
"You're okay now."
I looked out the windshield at the road ahead and said nothing.
Because we weren't okay yet.
Not even close.
May you like
My wife had just watched us take her only witness, and she was not the kind of person who accepted that quietly.
Whatever she was going to do next, she was already planning it.
