d anything. Seems like this might have been a false report, or a misunderstanding.” He frowned slightly. “Do you know anyone who might want to cause trouble for you?”
I looked at Laya. For just a moment, our eyes met, and we shared a thought so loud it almost spoke itself: Yes. We do.
But I shook my head. “No one I want to name without proof,” I said. “And I appreciate you doing your duty. Really. Better a false alarm than ignoring a real one.”
He studied me for a second longer, as if weighing the truth of that. Then he nodded.
“All right. If anything unusual happens, or if you remember something, please call the station and ask for me. We keep records of false reports too. Sometimes they form patterns.”
“I will,” I promised.
They left, closing the door gently behind them. The sound reverberated through the house like a sigh.
“We’re safe,” Laya whispered, as soon as their footsteps faded. She rushed to me, wrapping her arms around my waist. I held her tightly, burying my face in her damp hair, breathing in the scent of rain and shampoo and fear.
“Not yet,” I murmured into her hair. “But we’re safer than we were.”
I had barely finished the sentence when another sound cut through the room.
The click of a key in the front door.
It tore through the fragile quiet like a knife.
The door burst open, banging against the wall. Derek stepped inside, his eyes wild, chest heaving as if he’d run the entire way. His gaze swept the room, looking for uniforms.
“What happened?” he demanded. “Where are they? The cops. They came, right? I saw a squad car down the street.”
“They left,” I said, hearing how calm my voice sounded and marveling at it. “They didn’t find anything because there was nothing to find.”
He stared at me, disbelief etched in every line of his face. “That’s impossible,” he blurted out, the words tumbling out too fast to filter. “I put it there myself—”
Silence crashed around us.
He realized, in that instant, what he had admitted. The color drained from his face, leaving him pale and sickly in the lamplight.
In the corner of my eye, I saw movement. Laya, lifting her phone. The little red light glowed again, steady and unblinking.
“Dad,” she said quietly, stepping forward. “Stop.”
He turned toward her, his expression crumpling from fury to something like desperation. “Laya, you don’t understand,” he began, reaching out a hand. “I had to. I’m in trouble. I—”
I stepped between them, my arm outstretched, my voice as sharp as a snapped branch. “Don’t touch her.”
He froze.
I felt no tremor in my limbs now. No dizziness. Only a clarity I hadn’t known I was capable of anymore.
“You tried to ruin my life,” I said. “You tried to throw your own mother in prison so you could get your hands on this house. And you terrified your daughter in the process. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
His mouth opened and closed.
“I just— I thought—” He glanced toward the window, toward the empty street. “No one was supposed to get hurt. You’d just… they’d just question you, and then—”
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