Chapter 4 - THE SECOND PHONEDaniel didn’t speak for nearly ten minutes.
He sat beside the hospital window staring at the sentence his mother had written.
If Claire is removed first, Daniel becomes manageable again.
I watched my husband lose whatever childhood illusion he had left.
Parents occupy a strange place inside us.
We can become adults, build careers, marry, have children, buy houses, and still carry some tiny version of them from when we were eight years old.
The parent who knew everything.
The parent who would protect us.
The parent whose worst behavior could somehow be translated into love if we tried hard enough.
That version of Lorraine died for Daniel that morning.
Detective Torres closed the file.
“We need to be careful about interpretation.”
Daniel laughed once without humor.
“What interpretation?”
“Notes can mean many things. Our job is proving actions.”
“She attacked my wife.”
“Yes.”
“She accessed our accounts.”
“We’re investigating that.”
“She had my insurance policy hidden under a bed.”
“Which is concerning.”
Daniel stood.
“Concerning?”
“Daniel.”
I reached for his hand.
He stopped.
Torres didn’t take offense.
“I understand you’re angry. But anger is not evidence. Evidence is evidence. Let us build it correctly.”
That sentence probably saved us from making several mistakes.
Because my instinct was to confront Lorraine.
Daniel’s instinct was worse.
He wanted answers immediately.
Instead, Torres convinced us to let the investigation continue.
I stayed in the hospital another night for observation.
Daniel stayed with me.
At three in the morning, I woke and found him sitting in darkness.
“You should sleep.”
“I can’t.”
“Come here.”
He sat beside me.
For a while neither of us spoke.
Then he said, “When I was nine, my dad tried to leave.”
I turned toward him.
Daniel almost never spoke about his father.
Arthur Mercer had died twelve years earlier of a heart attack.
Lorraine’s version of their marriage was simple: devoted husband, devoted wife, perfect family.
“What happened?”
“I remember suitcases.”
Daniel stared at his hands.
“He packed them while Mom was at church. He told me we were going to visit Uncle Peter.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“What stopped him?”
“Mom came home early.”
His voice was distant.
“They argued in the garage. I heard Dad say, ‘You don’t get to decide who I talk to.’”
My skin prickled.
“What happened after?”
“Nothing. At least that’s what I thought. The next morning Dad said we weren’t going anywhere.”
“Did he ever try again?”
“Not that I knew.”
He looked toward me.
“But after that, he barely saw his brother.”
“Peter?”
Daniel nodded.
“I haven’t seen Uncle Peter since Dad’s funeral.”
“Why?”
“Mom said Peter tried to steal from Dad’s company.”
“Did you believe her?”
“I was twenty-three. Why wouldn’t I?”
There was a long silence.
Then I asked, “Can we find him?”
Daniel looked at me.
The next morning, we did.
Peter Mercer lived in Oregon.
Retired.
Seventy-one.
Daniel found an old email address through a family contact.
He wrote only:
Uncle Peter, this is Daniel. Something happened involving Mom. I need to ask you about Dad. Please call me.
The phone rang eleven minutes later.
Daniel answered on speaker.
“Hello?”
A rough older voice responded.
“Danny?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Nobody had called him Danny in years.
“Hi, Uncle Peter.”
Peter began crying.
Not loudly.
Just one sharp breath followed by silence.
“I’ve been waiting twenty years for this call.”
Daniel looked at me.
“What do you mean?”
Peter’s story changed everything.
Arthur had tried to leave Lorraine twice.
Not because of another woman.
Not because of money.
Because she controlled everything.
His friendships.
His schedule.
His bank accounts.
His contact with relatives.
According to Peter, Lorraine opened Arthur’s mail, monitored his phone bills, contacted coworkers pretending to be him, and once canceled a job interview that would have moved the family to California.
Daniel went white.
“That sounds exactly like—”
He stopped.
Exactly like us.
Peter continued.
“The second time Arthur tried leaving, he came to my house.”
“What happened?”
“He stayed two nights.”
“And then?”
“Lorraine called him.”
Peter paused.
“She told him you’d been taken to the emergency room.”
Daniel sat upright.
“What?”
“You were fine.”
“She lied?”
“She said you’d collapsed.”
Daniel stared ahead.
“He came home.”
“Yes.”
“What happened after?”
“I barely spoke to him for years.”
“Because he thought you stole from him?”
Peter laughed bitterly.
“Is that what she told you?”
Daniel didn’t answer.
Peter sighed.
“I never stole anything from your father.”
“Then why did he cut you off?”
“He didn’t.”
“What?”
“I kept calling. Lorraine told me Arthur didn’t want contact. Years later I found out she told Arthur the same thing about me.”
It was like watching a wall collapse brick by brick.
Daniel whispered, “She separated you.”
“She separated everybody.”
Then Peter said something even worse.
“Danny, how did your father die?”
“Heart attack.”
“Where?”
“At home.”
“Who found him?”
“Mom.”
Peter was silent.
Daniel looked at me.
I could almost hear his thoughts racing.
“No,” he said quickly.
“No. We’re not doing that.”
“I didn’t say she killed him.”
Peter’s voice tightened.
“I’m telling you your father had been complaining about chest pain for two days.”
Daniel’s face changed.
“What?”
“He called me.”
“But you said you barely spoke.”
“That was one of the few times.”
“What did you tell him?”
“To go to the hospital.”
Daniel gripped the phone.
“Did he?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“He said Lorraine told him it was indigestion.”
Daniel stood.
Peter continued.
“Arthur said she had taken his car keys because he was ‘too anxious to drive.’”
I felt sick.
“When did he die?” I asked softly.
Peter answered.
“Two days later.”
Daniel walked to the window.
His shoulders shook.
I wanted to go to him, but my monitor wires tugged.
He turned around.
“My father might have lived.”
Peter answered carefully.
“We don’t know that.”
“But she stopped him.”
“We don’t know exactly what happened.”
It was Detective Torres’s lesson again.
Evidence.
Not assumptions.
But another pattern had emerged.
Control access.
Control communication.
Control medical help.
Separate the victim from anyone who might interfere.
I thought about my phone inside the safe.
The canceled ambulance.
The disabled camera.
Lorraine had not invented this behavior for me.
She had practiced it.
After the call, Daniel contacted Torres.
She listened without interrupting.
“I can look into the circumstances of Arthur Mercer’s death,” she said. “But understand, that case is twelve years old.”
“I know.”
“Records may be limited.”
“I know.”
She paused.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Forensics accessed more data from the prepaid phone.”
She sent Daniel an image.
It was a screenshot of text messages.
The messages were between Lorraine and an unidentified number.
UNKNOWN: Is she still planning to deliver at St. Matthew’s?
LORRAINE: Yes.
UNKNOWN: And Daniel?
LORRAINE: He’ll do what he’s told when she’s out of the picture.
UNKNOWN: You promised this wouldn’t become messy.
LORRAINE: It won’t.
My hands went cold.
“What does ‘out of the picture’ mean?”
Torres didn’t answer.
Instead she said, “We’re identifying the other number.”
Daniel enlarged the screenshot.
There were more messages.
UNKNOWN: I’m not risking my license for a family dispute.
LORRAINE: You already did.
UNKNOWN: I changed one record.
That’s all.
One record.
I looked at Daniel.
“My medical records.”
Torres said, “That’s one possibility.”
Then another message appeared.
LORRAINE: Make sure the history is there before delivery.
UNKNOWN: And after that we’re done.
The room seemed to shrink.
The story Lorraine had been building about my mental instability wasn’t confined to relatives.
Someone with a professional license had altered something official.
Something intended to follow me into the hospital.
May you like
And suddenly my baby’s upcoming delivery didn’t feel like a joyful date on the calendar.
It felt like a deadline.
Related Stories
