Chapter 12 - THE DRIVEWAY
Claire was upstairs when I called her name.
Something in my voice brought her running.
The truck stopped behind her car.
I could see Jake through the windshield.
He sat there for several seconds.
Then he got out.
I called the police.
My voice sounded strangely calm.
“My husband is outside. There are restrictions on contact. I’m at my sister’s house.”
Jake walked toward the porch carrying a folder.
No flowers this time.
“Rachel.”
He knocked.
I stepped away from the window.
“Open the door. I just want to talk.”
Claire stood beside me, holding her phone.
She was recording from inside.
“I made mistakes,” Jake said. “But you’re taking this too far.”
He tried the handle.
Locked.
“We can still fix the house thing.”
There it was again.
The house thing.
Not my face.
Not the years.
The thing that might cost him money.
He pressed the folder against the glass.
“Sign the agreement. We split what’s left. You keep your job. Everybody walks away.”
I stayed silent.
His voice sharpened.
“You hear me?”
Claire said loudly, “You need to leave.”
Jake looked toward her voice.
“This is between me and my wife.”
“She called the police.”
He froze.
Then he smiled.
“You always were dramatic.”
He stepped off the porch, but he didn’t leave.
Instead, he tore one page from the folder and pushed it into the mailbox.
By the time officers arrived, he was standing beside his truck.
He claimed he’d come to deliver paperwork.
I gave them the message.
Claire gave them her recording.
One officer read the contact restrictions while the other spoke to him.
This time, I watched from a distance as they took him away.
I didn’t feel victorious.
I felt exhausted.
The next morning, Maya reviewed the page he’d left.
A proposed settlement.
I would drop claims about the property documents.
He would agree to a divorce.
Below those terms was a deadline.
Friday at five.
“His deadline,” Maya said. “Not yours.”
But the timing mattered.
A formal interview with investigators had been scheduled for Friday.
He had wanted my signature before it happened.
At noon, Nora called.
“Mom’s been telling everyone she’s coming to your interview.”
“She can’t come with me.”
“I know.”
Nora took a shaky breath.
“She doesn’t know I heard her talking to Dad.”
“What did she say?”
“That if you wouldn’t sign, there was another way to make you look unreliable.”
Then my work phone rang.
May you like
It was the police.
Someone had filed a complaint against me.
