Chapter 10 - MARGARET’S LAST THREAT
Nobody moved.
Margaret knocked once.
Calmly.
“You can open the door, or I can call the police.”
Nathan laughed quietly.
“For what? Stealing documents proving your crimes?”
Margaret heard him.
“Nathan.”
Her voice changed.
“You’ve always been ungrateful.”
He looked at Evan.
“That voice right there? That’s your whole childhood.”
Evan’s face hardened.
Then he opened the unit.
Margaret stood outside.
Alone.
She looked at all of us.
Her children.
Her estranged son.
Me.
My father.
And for once, nobody lowered their eyes.
Margaret looked at the box in my hands.
“You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“I know exactly what you were doing.”
“I was protecting Maisie.”
“By hitting her?”
“She needed discipline.”
“She’s two.”
“You’re too soft.”
My father stepped forward.
“Margaret, stop talking.”
She smiled at him.
“You’d love this, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d love my granddaughter safe.”
“She was safe with me.”
I lifted the recorder.
“Safe?”
For the first time, fear flickered across her face.
“You recorded her.”
“I documented behavior.”
“You taught a toddler to accuse me of abuse.”
“I prepared for a possibility.”
“What possibility?”
“That you’d take her away from Evan.”
I laughed.
“You were the reason I needed to.”
Margaret turned toward Evan.
“Tell her.”
He didn’t move.
“Evan.”
“No.”
Her expression sharpened.
“What did you say?”
“I said no.”
It sounded small.
But it was the most important word my husband had spoken in years.
Margaret stepped toward him.
“I sacrificed everything for you.”
“You stole from me.”
“I managed your money.”
“You lied about Nathan.”
“For your protection.”
“You lied about Dad’s trust.”
“You would have wasted it.”
“You hit my daughter.”
Margaret’s face went flat.
“One slap.”
Evan’s eyes filled with tears.
“One was enough.”
She stared at him.
Then she looked at Tessa.
“You too?”
Tessa stepped beside her brothers.
“Yes.”
Something broke inside Margaret.
Her calm vanished.
“You pathetic children!”
She pointed at Nathan.
“You abandoned us!”
At Tessa.
“You spy on me!”
Then Evan.
“You would be nothing without me!”
Finally me.
“And you…”
She stepped closer.
“…you poisoned all of them.”
Dad moved between us.
Margaret smiled.
Then she said:
“You still don’t understand.”
I frowned.
“What?”
She looked at Evan.
“Tell Claire whose name is on Maisie’s emergency guardianship papers.”
Evan froze.
I turned toward him.
“What papers?”
He whispered:
“I signed them before she was born.”
My blood ran cold.
Margaret smiled.
“If anything happens to either of you, Maisie comes to me.”
Nathan said quietly:
“Not anymore.”
Margaret looked at him.
May you like
He held up a file.
“Because Thomas left another will.”
