Chapter 7: What She Was Really Protecting
He didn't say anything about the phone.
He went upstairs, showered, and changed.
When he came back down, Diane was still at the table.
Her phone was now face-down.
Tyler and Becca were up, sitting across from their mother in silence.
Tyler was staring at the table.
Becca was watching her mother with an expression that was hard to read — not quite worry, not quite something else.
"I need to talk to my kids alone," Diane said when he walked in.
"This is my house," he said.
"I'll be in the office."
He went to the office, but he left the door open.
He could hear her voice — low, controlled, the tone she used when she was managing a situation.
He couldn't make out the words.
He heard Tyler say something short.
He heard Diane respond.
He heard Becca say, clearly: "Mom, stop."
A silence.
Then Becca appeared in the office doorway.
She was thirteen, with her mother's dark hair and her own quiet, watchful eyes.
She looked at Thomas for a moment.
"Can I talk to you?" she said.
"Of course."
She came in and sat in the chair across from the desk.
She looked at her hands.
"My mom has a storage unit," she said.
"On Clearfield Road.
She's had it for about a year.
She told us it was for extra furniture." She paused.
"But I went with her once, about three months ago, and it wasn't furniture.
It was boxes.
Filing boxes, the kind with lids.
And a safe.
One of those small fireproof ones."
He kept his voice even.
"Do you know the unit number?"
"Fourteen," she said.
"I remember because it was my old soccer number."
"Becca." He leaned forward slightly.
"Why are you telling me this?"
She looked up.
Her eyes were steady and a little tired, the way eyes get when someone has been carrying something for a while.
"Because Maya is eight years old," she said.
"And I'm not going to pretend I didn't see what I saw."
He nodded once.
"Thank you," he said.
She stood up and went back to the kitchen.
He heard Diane's voice start again, lower and faster.
He heard Becca say: "I'm not going to lie for you, Mom."
His lawyer arrived at 1 p.m.
with a colleague who introduced herself as a child welfare consultant.
They sat in the living room.
Thomas laid out the shoebox, the letter, the photographs, and Mia's phone with the videos queued up.
The consultant watched all five videos without expression.
When the last one ended, she set the phone down on the coffee table.
"Where is the child now?" she asked.
"Upstairs.
Both girls are upstairs."
"And the stepmother?"
"Kitchen."
The consultant looked at the lawyer.
Something passed between them.
"Mr.
Thomas," the lawyer said, "I want you to understand what we're looking at.
The recorded statements alone constitute a pattern of emotional @buse directed at a minor.
The physical lock on the door — if we can document that — adds a second layer.
The removal of legal documents from the family home is a separate matter but it compounds the picture significantly."
"What happens now?" he asked.
"We're going to need to speak with Diane," the consultant said.
"And we're going to need to do that with a formal record being kept.
Is she aware we're here?"
"She knows my lawyer was coming."
"All right." The consultant stood up.
"Let's go speak with her."
They found Diane in the kitchen, composed, her hands around a fresh cup of coffee.
Tyler had gone to his room.
Becca was sitting at the far end of the table, not looking at her mother.
Diane looked at the consultant and her expression shifted into something practiced and sympathetic.
"I'm so glad someone professional is here," she said.
"This situation has been completely misrepresented and I think once you hear my side—"
"Mrs.
Diane," the consultant said, sitting down across from her.
"I've watched the videos."
May you like
Diane's coffee cup stopped halfway to her mouth.
"I'd like to start," the consultant said, "with the lock on Maya's bedroom door."
