Chapter 4 - THE BEDROOM
The court allowed me to return home once.
Police escort.
Naomi.
A locksmith.
Damon was barred from being present.
I went because I wanted my clothes, medical records, the unsigned marital acknowledgment, and the nursery items I had spent months preparing.
Lacey had left evidence of herself everywhere.
Not incriminating evidence.
Personal evidence.
Her perfume in my bathroom.
A makeup bag beside my sink.
A pair of shoes beneath my vanity.
Wineglasses beside my bed.
My pregnancy pillow pushed onto the floor.
The silk robe was gone.
I stood in the doorway of the bedroom and felt something colder than heartbreak.
Replacement.
That was what Damon wanted me to feel.
Not merely cheated on.
Removed.
Naomi entered behind me. “You don’t have to stay in here.”
“I do.”
I opened the desk.
The marital cooperation acknowledgment was gone.
The waterfront consent folder was gone.
But the scanner history on our home printer remained.
I photographed the display.
Two weeks earlier, someone had scanned:
RAINA_SIGNATURE_SPECIMENS.pdf
My stomach twisted.
Naomi immediately told me not to touch anything else.
Police documented.
A digital forensics specialist would handle the printer if a warrant or civil preservation order allowed.
Then I went into the nursery.
That was worse.
The crib remained.
The changing table.
The cream-colored rocking chair.
But several drawers had been emptied.
Baby clothes stacked inside cardboard boxes.
A label on one:
STORAGE.
I looked at Naomi.
“Who packed these?”
“I don’t know.”
On the dresser sat a folded note in Lacey’s handwriting.
I knew it because I had received enough of her office invitations over the years.
Raina,
Damon said the nursery might become the guest room after everything settles. I boxed the clothes carefully.
—L
I could not breathe for a second.
After everything settles.
I handed the note to the officer.
Evidence of cruelty?
Maybe.
Evidence of fraud?
No.
But a clear picture of what Damon and Lacey expected.
Me gone.
Baby displaced.
Bedroom reassigned.
Then the officer found a small portable document shredder in the study with paper fragments still inside.
Could be ordinary.
Police preserved.
Dad arrived only after I called.
He stayed downstairs until I asked him up.
When he saw the boxed nursery clothes, his face hardened.
“Don’t.”
He looked at me.
“No throwing anyone into furniture, kennels, rivers, or walls.”
Despite everything, he almost smiled.
“I understand.”
Good.
We packed my things.
Before leaving, I noticed the framed wedding photograph on the hallway console had been turned facedown.
I turned it back upright.
Then stopped.
Why?
What was I proving?
I picked it up and put it in a box marked MY PROPERTY.
Not because I wanted the marriage preserved.
Because I would decide what happened to my memories.
Not Lacey.
Not Damon.
Outside, Dad told me forensic accounting had found something else.
Meridian North had paid a $750,000 “transaction advisory retainer” before the sale even closed.
Recipient:
Monroe Strategic Partners.
Lacey’s firm.
Could that fee be legitimate?
Possibly.
Large deals pay advisers.
But Lacey already worked for Halstead.
Why was the buyer paying her private company?
Conflict.
Then Dad handed Naomi a chart.
The waterfront parcel had recently received preliminary rezoning approval. Under the new zoning, independent value estimates ranged from twenty-seven to thirty-three million dollars.
Damon was trying to sell it for eighteen.
The buyer stood to gain perhaps ten million dollars or more.
And Lacey was being paid by the buyer.
I looked back at the house.
May you like
Suddenly the kennel was not the ugliest thing Damon had done that week.
It was only the part he had done with his hands.
