CHAP 4 — The Safe Under the Stairs
The police searched the house before sunset.
I did not go inside.
I stood across the street beside Diane while officers entered with gloves, cameras, and a warrant Ethan’s panic had helped make very easy to obtain.
Monica arrived twenty-three minutes later in a white SUV, wearing sunglasses though the sky had turned gray.
She saw the patrol cars and stopped so abruptly her tires barked against the curb.
Then she saw me.
Her face went still.
“Hannah,” she called. “What have you done?”
Diane answered before I could.
“Preserved evidence.”
Monica looked her up and down.
“Who are you?”
“The person your brother should have researched before marrying a forensic accountant.”
Monica went pale.
Inside the basement, officers found the safe beneath a tarp near the old water heater.
It had a biometric lock.
My fingerprints were not on it.
Monica’s were.
Ethan’s were.
Inside were documents, cash, veterinary permits, a colony transport container, photographs of Ethan’s back taken before and after the insect exposure, and a draft police statement accusing me of intentional harm.
The plan was ugly.
Simple.
Effective, if I had been as stupid as they thought.
Ethan would claim I had attacked him with insects from the basement colony after discovering his affair and financial secrets. Monica would say she had warned him I was unstable. The safe would contain the enclosure and documents with my fingerprints, placed there after Monica tricked me into opening it.
Then Ethan would file for divorce.
The injury photos would help him request a protective order.
The protective order would force me out of the house.
The financial documents would frame me for stealing from Mercer family accounts.
And while everyone looked at the bizarre assault accusation, Ethan and Monica would empty the trust, sell assets, and bury the embezzlement I had started noticing months earlier.
“They wanted your prints on the safe,” Diane said.
I looked at Monica.
“You needed me to touch it before tonight.”
Monica’s mouth opened.
No words came.
That was rare for her.
An officer carried out a sealed evidence bag containing a printed police narrative.
The title read:
Statement of Ethan Mercer Regarding Assault by Spouse.
Diane read the first page and looked at me.
“They wrote your breakdown in advance.”
My stomach turned.
Not from surprise.
From the intimacy of it.
They had planned my ruin in complete sentences.
Ethan arrived in a police car after being questioned at the clinic. When he saw Monica detained near the driveway, he shouted her name.
She shouted back.
“You said she’d touch the safe!”
There it was.
Loud.
Clear.
In front of two officers and Diane’s recorder.
May you like
Ethan closed his eyes.
For once, even he knew the number had balanced.
