Chapter 4: Everything She Built Against Me
I didn't move.
I didn't speak.
I let the silence sit there between us until Rhea's smile began to look like work.
Then I said, "If you go near my son, there is no version of this where you walk away."
"I'm not threatening anyone." She slid the phone back into her pocket.
"I'm describing a situation.
You call the police, things get complicated.
For everyone.
Perrin gets questioned.
Social services gets involved.
The press finds out." She spread her hands.
"Or we handle this quietly.
Nora goes somewhere she can recover.
You and I go back to our lives.
Nobody has to know."
Nora's hand found my wrist from the cot.
"Don't," she said.
Not to Rhea.
To me.
"Don't agree to anything she says.
That's how she keeps control.
That's always how she keeps control."
Rhea looked at Nora with something that was almost pity.
"You're exhausted, sweetheart.
You're not thinking clearly."
"I'm thinking more clearly than I have in weeks." Nora sat up straighter.
"Because he's here now."
I turned back to Rhea.
"How did you know Nora?
Before.
How did this start?"
For the first time, something shifted in her posture.
Not much.
A fraction.
"We knew each other a long time ago," she said.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you're getting tonight."
I walked to the bottom of the stairs.
"Then we're done talking.
Come upstairs or stay down here.
Either way, I'm making the call."
I was halfway up when she said it.
"I have the medical records, Joel."
I stopped.
"The ones from the clinic.
Three years ago.
The ones that show Nora was admitted voluntarily for a psychiatric episode.
The ones with her signature on them." A pause.
"And yours."
I turned around slowly.
"My signature."
"A very good one." She wasn't smiling now.
Her face had gone to something harder and more honest.
"I told you.
I've been careful.
If this goes to the police, those records surface.
And suddenly the story isn't about me at all.
It's about a husband who had his unstable wife committed and then told everyone she d*ed."
Nora made a sharp sound.
"She forged them," she said.
"Joel, she forged everything.
She showed them to me when she first brought me here.
She wanted me to understand that I couldn't fight it."
"Forged documents are still documents," Rhea said.
"And investigations take time.
And in that time, Perrin lives in a house where both his parents are under suspicion." She came to the bottom of the stairs and looked up at me.
"Is that what you want for him?"
I looked at her for a long moment.
Then I went upstairs.
She followed, because she thought she'd won.
She hadn't.
But I needed her to believe she had, for just a little longer.
Perrin was in the kitchen with Mrs.
Hallett, the housekeeper, both hands wrapped around a mug of warm milk.
He looked up when I came in and his whole face changed.
"Is she okay?
Is Mom okay?"
"She's going to be okay." I crouched in front of him.
"I need you to do something for me.
I need you to go upstairs with Mrs.
Hallett and stay in your room until I come get you.
Can you do that?"
"Is Rhea going to hurt her again?"
The word again landed like something physical.
"No," I said.
"She's not."
Mrs.
Hallett met my eyes over Perrin's head.
She had worked in this house for six years.
She was sixty-three years old and she had the expression of a woman who had been waiting for permission to say something for a very long time.
"Mr.
Joel," she said quietly.
May you like
"I have a phone.
And I've been in this house all week."
