Chapter 5 - THE FATHER AT THE DOORI called Natalie before Daniel finished dialing the police.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
My hands shook so badly I nearly dropped the phone.
“Call Theo’s school.”
“He isn’t at school.”
Daniel looked at me.
“Where is he?”
“At Natalie’s.”
Clara stood.
“Audrey—”
“Don’t.”
I called my sister again.
This time she answered.
“Audrey?”
“Where’s Theo?”
“With me. Why?”
Every muscle in my body loosened by half an inch.
“Lock the doors.”
“What?”
“Lock everything. Right now.”
Natalie didn’t question me.
I heard the deadbolt slide.
“Is Julian coming?”
“We don’t know.”
Theo spoke somewhere behind her.
“Is that Mommy?”
I pressed my fist against my mouth.
“Keep him away from windows.”
Daniel was talking to Detective Brooks.
Clara paced.
Her attorney told her to sit.
Nobody listened.
Then Natalie said, “There’s a car outside.”
My vision narrowed.
“What car?”
“Black SUV.”
Julian drove a black Range Rover.
“Get Theo upstairs.”
“Audrey—”
“Now!”
Daniel took the phone from me and switched it to speaker.
“Natalie, police are on the way. Do not open the door.”
Someone knocked.
Three slow knocks.
Theo started crying upstairs.
Then Julian’s voice came through the phone.
“Natalie?”
I stopped breathing.
“It’s me. I need to see my son.”
Daniel whispered, “Do not answer.”
Another knock.
“Natalie, open the door.”
Silence.
Then harder.
“Natalie!”
She whispered, “He knows we’re here.”
Daniel said, “Police are three minutes away.”
Three minutes can be nothing.
Three minutes can be forever.
Julian pounded again.
“I have a court order allowing me to see Theo!”
That was a lie.
He knew it was a lie.
Natalie remained silent.
Then a different sound came through the phone.
A window.
I couldn’t tell whether he struck it or tried to open it.
“Natalie?”
“I’m upstairs.”
“Stay there.”
I was halfway to the office door.
Daniel caught my arm.
“Where are you going?”
“To my son.”
“You are eight months pregnant and Julian is unstable.”
“He is my child.”
“And police will reach him faster than you can.”
I hated that he was right.
So I stood frozen while my sister whispered from inside a locked bedroom.
Julian shouted downstairs.
“Theo! Buddy! Daddy’s here!”
My son began sobbing.
“Mommy!”
I grabbed the phone.
“Theo, sweetheart, listen to Aunt Natalie.”
“Daddy’s mad!”
“I know. Stay with Aunt Natalie.”
“I don’t want him to take Benjamin!”
“He won’t.”
That sentence came out stronger than I felt.
“Mommy promises.”
Sirens sounded through the speaker.
Julian stopped pounding.
For one instant, everything went quiet.
Then an engine roared.
“He’s leaving,” Natalie whispered.
Police intercepted Julian six blocks away.
He wasn’t arrested for the financial investigation that day.
Not yet.
But officers documented the attempted contact.
Judge Norris modified the temporary order within hours.
Julian was barred from approaching Theo, me, Natalie’s home, and Theo’s school except as specifically authorized.
That night, Theo slept beside me.
He woke twice from nightmares.
At three in the morning, he whispered, “Daddy was nice before Clara.”
I stared into the darkness.
“Yes.”
That was the tragedy.
Julian hadn’t always been this version of himself.
Or maybe he had, and success simply gave him permission to become visible.
The next morning, news broke.
Vance Architectural Group had been searched.
Local business reporters gathered outside the office.
Employees began calling.
Some were angry.
Some terrified.
Some claimed they knew nothing.
One call came from a name I remembered well.
Marcus Reed.
Julian’s first employee.
I hadn’t spoken to him in five years.
Daniel advised me to take it with him listening.
Marcus’s voice sounded older.
“Audrey?”
“Hi, Marcus.”
“I’ve been trying to decide whether to call.”
“What do you know?”
Silence.
“More than I should.”
My stomach tightened.
“Then tell me.”
“You remember when Theo was born?”
“Yes.”
“Julian started telling everyone you wanted out of the company.”
“I never said that.”
“I figured.”
“Why?”
“Because you’d worked too hard building it.”
I shut my eyes.
Marcus continued.
“One day, Julian came in with ownership documents. He said you transferred your shares.”
“Did you see them?”
“Yes.”
“Did you believe I signed them?”
“At the time.”
“And now?”
“No.”
“Why?”
He took a breath.
“Because three weeks earlier, you told me you were excited to come back part-time.”
I remembered.
Standing in the office kitchen, still swollen from pregnancy, holding newborn Theo.
Telling Marcus I missed work.
Planning to return by summer.
Then my postpartum recovery worsened.
Julian told me the office was too stressful.
Told me everyone understood.
Apparently, he had told everyone something different.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I should have.”
“Yes.”
“I was twenty-eight. Julian was my boss. The company was growing. I had a baby too.”
Excuses.
Everyone had an excuse.
Maybe that was how men like Julian survived so long.
Not because nobody saw.
Because everyone saw only one small piece and convinced themselves it wasn’t their responsibility.
Marcus said, “There’s something else.”
Of course there was.
“The signatures weren’t the only strange thing.”
“What else?”
“Julian asked me to witness one.”
My blood chilled.
“Mine?”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know. He came back the next day and it was signed.”
Daniel leaned toward the phone.
“Marcus, do you remember whose name appeared as witness?”
A long pause.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Camille Arden.”
There it was again.
Camille.
CFO.
Lisbon ticket.
Witness.
Daniel asked, “Did Camille work for the company then?”
“No.”
I stared at the phone.
“When did she start?”
“About four months later.”
“So why was she witnessing my supposed signature before she worked there?”
“I never knew.”
That afternoon investigators obtained another old record.
Camille had notarized one of the disputed documents.
At the time, she had been working at a bank.
The same bank that financed Vance Architectural Group.
My original bank.
The one holding my grandmother’s investment.
This hadn’t begun with an affair.
It hadn’t even begun with Clara.
Julian and Camille had known each other for years.
Maybe longer than I had known him.
By evening, Daniel had another discovery.
Camille’s husband had filed for divorce six years earlier.
Then withdrawn the petition suddenly.
Two months later, he died in a boating accident.
“Stop,” I said.
Daniel frowned.
“I’m not suggesting anything.”
“It sounded like you were.”
“I’m saying her financial history is complicated.”
“I don’t want this becoming some ridiculous murder mystery because we’re angry.”
“Agreed.”
There was enough truth without inventing darkness.
Then Daniel showed me what actually mattered.
The year Camille’s husband died, she received a large insurance payout.
Six months later, $300,000 moved into an investment company.
The investment company later became one of the earliest lenders to Vance Architectural Group.
I stared at the amount.
Three hundred thousand.
Almost identical to what I had invested.
Two women had funded Julian’s rise.
One knowingly.
One without understanding what she was really financing.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Daniel shook his head.
“We don’t know yet.”
But we soon would.
Because at 9:17 that night, Camille Arden walked into a police station carrying a laptop.
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And unlike Clara, she wasn’t asking for immunity.
She was asking for protection.
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