“They were in their room. I was going to the bathroom and passed their door. It was slightly ajar. Chelsea was talking on the phone with someone. She was saying, ‘Don’t worry. Everything is going according to plan. When the old lady dies, Rob will inherit the house. We’ll sell it and get at least $4,500,000. With that and what I’ve already saved, we’ll go to Miami. We’ll open the hotel we always dreamed of. And the kid… we’ll send him to a military boarding school in San Diego. Let someone else deal with him.’”
I felt the blood boil inside me.
“Are you sure of what you heard?”
“Completely sure, Grandma. That’s why… that night when I came home late and she attacked me, I knew it was part of her plan. She wants to push me away from you. She wants you to see me as a problem. She wants my dad to see me that way, too. And when I’m no longer in the way, all that’s left is to wait for you.”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. Chelsea was planning my death. Or at least she was waiting for me to die soon. And in the meantime, she was going to destroy any bond that existed between my son and me. Between Ethan and his father.
“Did you say anything to your father?”
“I tried. The next day when Chelsea went to the hair salon, I told him what I had heard. Do you know what he told me? That I was making things up because I couldn’t accept that he moved on with his life. That I was a resentful teenager. That Chelsea had been very patient with me and that I was just trying to make her look bad.”
The helplessness I felt in that moment was crushing. My own son—the boy I had raised to be fair and honest—was completely blinded.
“You are not making anything up, Ethan. And I believe every word.”
He leaned his head on my shoulder and sighed.
“Why does she hate us so much, Grandma?”
“Because the hatred of people like Chelsea doesn’t come from the heart. It comes from ambition. For her, you and I are obstacles—things that stand between her and what she wants.”
“And what does she want?”
“Money. Power. An easy life without working for it.”
I fell silent, thinking. I started putting the pieces together. When Rob met Chelsea, she told him she came from a wealthy family in Dallas, that she had attended private schools, that she worked as a dealer at the casino because she liked the excitement, not out of necessity. But we never met her family. No relative ever came to the wedding. When I asked Rob about it, he said Chelsea was estranged from her parents due to personal problems.
How convenient.
“Ethan, I need you to do me a favor.”
“Anything, Grandma.”
“Take out your phone. Show me the photos of the bruises you said you had from before.”
He took his cell phone out of his pocket, unlocked the screen, and opened his gallery. He showed me a hidden folder in his files. There were at least twenty photos—bruises on his arms, on his back, on his legs. All recent, all dated.
“Why did you never show me this?”
“Because I was afraid that if I did something, my dad would blame you. Chelsea always says that you’re turning me against them.”
“Send me all those photos. Now.”
Ethan obeyed. My phone started vibrating as the images arrived. Every photo was proof. Every mark was a silent cry for help that no one had heard until now.
“Now I need you to sleep a little,” I told him. “Your eyebrow is swollen and you need to rest. Use my room. I’ll stay here on the couch.”
“But Grandma—”
“No buts. Go to sleep.”
He got up, kissed me on the forehead, and went to my room. I heard him close the door softly.
I was left alone in the living room with my cell phone in my hand and the photos of my bruised grandson filling the screen. Then I did something I hadn’t done in years. I opened a drawer of the living room cabinet and took out an old leather-bound notebook. It was my investigation notebook—the same one I used when I was on active duty. Inside were phone numbers, contacts, notes from old cases.
I looked for a specific name.
Linda Davis.
Linda had been my partner for ten years in criminal investigations. She was younger than me but just as tenacious. When I retired, she continued working for a couple more years until she opened her own private investigation agency. We had seen each other a few times since then, but I knew that if anyone could help me, it was her.
I dialed her number. It rang four times before she answered.
“Hello?”
Her hoarse voice sounded sleepy.
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