Chapter 1 - THE RED LIGHT
The moment my husband broke my nose, his mother took my phone.
Not to call an ambulance.
To make sure I couldn’t.
“Stop overreacting,” Linda said, stepping between me and the kitchen door. “It’s just a scratch.”
Blood ran over my lips. Behind Jake, a refrigerator magnet slid down the metal door and hit the floor.
From the living room, his father didn’t even look away from the television.
“Drama queen.”
Then I saw the little red light above Jake’s shoulder.
And for the first time that night, I stopped feeling trapped.
My name is Rachel Miller. Until that Friday, I thought leaving a marriage required permission from the person who had made it unbearable.
I had spent six years waiting for permission Jake would never give.
Twenty minutes earlier, I’d come home from my job at a dental office and opened the refrigerator.
Jake wanted dinner.
He always wanted something the moment I walked in.
“Are you stupid or just slow?” he demanded.
“I just got home.”
“Then you should’ve planned better.”
His parents had been staying with us for eleven months. Their house needed repairs, supposedly. The repairs never ended.
Neither did their opinions.
Linda thought my paycheck belonged in Jake’s account.
Don thought housework was what women did instead of complaining.
Jake thought agreeing with them made him a good son.
I reached for a container of chicken.
He crossed the kitchen, shoved me against the refrigerator, and drove his knee upward when I bent to steady myself.
A crack.
Then heat.
Then the awful realization that the sound had come from my own face.
Now he stood over me, breathing normally.
“You’re not calling anybody,” he said. “You’re fine. Right, Rachel?”
Linda tightened her fingers around my phone.
I looked beyond them.
The camera sat on the shelf where we had put it when my sister’s toddler spent a weekend with us. Afterward, I’d kept it to watch our elderly dog while we worked.
I had paid for the recording subscription myself.
The account was mine.
Jake had forgotten it existed.
“Right,” I whispered.
His shoulders relaxed.
I took a clean dish towel and pressed it beneath my nose.
“I need to wash my face.”
Linda examined me, searching for resistance.
Apparently, she found none.
“Don’t get blood on the good towels.”
Upstairs, I shut the bathroom door without locking it. A locked door would bring Jake.
I opened the old tablet beneath the sink, where I kept it to listen to music while cleaning.
The camera app loaded.
There we were.
Jake’s hands.
Linda taking the phone.
Don’s voice.
Everything.
I saved the clip, hands trembling, and sent it to my sister.
Then I typed six words.
PLEASE COME. DON’T CALL THE HOUSE.
A floorboard creaked outside.
Jake tried the bathroom handle.
May you like
And on the tablet, a new notification appeared.
Someone had just requested access to my camera account.
