Chapter 5 - Raymond
Raymond knocked on my passenger window.
Once.
Twice.
I unlocked the door.
He climbed in without asking.
He smelled like expensive cologne and cigarettes.
“You following my daughter?”
My daughter.
I almost hit him.
Instead, I stared through the windshield.
“She was my daughter yesterday.”
He smiled.
“That’s the problem with guys like you.”
“What kind of guy am I?”
“You think paying bills makes you family.”
I turned toward him.
“No. Staying makes you family.”
His smile vanished.
Good.
I continued.
“You weren’t there for the nightmares. You weren’t there for braces. You weren’t there when she broke her arm. You weren’t there when her first boyfriend cheated on her and she cried so hard she threw up.”
Raymond’s jaw tightened.
“I had problems.”
“Everybody has problems.”
“You don’t know what happened.”
“I know you disappeared.”
He leaned closer.
“And yet she chose me.”
That landed.
He saw it.
Enjoyed it.
“She wants me walking her down the aisle,” he said. “Not you.”
“I heard.”
“She wants me in the family pictures.”
“I heard that too.”
Raymond sat back.
“You know what I think?”
“I don’t care.”
“I think you built this whole life expecting everyone to worship you for it.”
I looked at him.
“That sound familiar?”
He smiled.
“Denise said the same thing.”
There it was.
The triangle.
They had been talking about me.
Studying me.
Building a story where I was the problem.
Raymond reached for the door.
Then paused.
“One piece of advice, Frank.”
“What?”
“Don’t make Saturday ugly.”
I stared at him.
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s advice.”
He got out.
I waited until he walked away.
Then I called Martin.
“He knows I was there.”
“Damn it.”
“He came to me.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing useful.”
“Good.”
I watched Raymond disappear around the corner.
“Martin, he’s confident.”
“People who think they’re winning usually are.”
“What have you found?”
“Enough to make your day worse.”
I laughed without humor.
“Go ahead.”
“The seventy-five-thousand-dollar business loan was deposited into a company account.”
“What company?”
“Mercer Lifestyle Consulting.”
I almost choked.
“That sounds fake.”
“It was incorporated eleven months ago.”
“By Raymond?”
“By Sabrina.”
I went quiet.
He continued.
“She’s listed as organizer. Denise is the registered agent.”
That was before Raymond officially returned.
Which meant he had never “suddenly come back.”
They had been planning something for almost a year.
“How long has Sabrina been talking to him?”
“I don’t know.”
“But longer than six months.”
“Almost certainly.”
I drove home in silence.
When I got there, Denise was gone.
I checked the bedroom.
Her jewelry box was half empty.
Two suitcases were missing from the closet.
I opened the bathroom cabinet.
Medication gone.
Passport gone.
My pulse spiked.
They weren’t leaving after the wedding.
They were preparing now.
I checked the hallway camera.
Denise hated security cameras, but after tools were stolen from my workshop two years earlier, I had installed three outside.
One pointed at the driveway.
At 9:52, Denise loaded two suitcases into her SUV.
At 10:01, Sabrina arrived.
At 10:04, Raymond’s sedan pulled up.
They talked for twelve minutes.
Then Denise handed Raymond a thick envelope.
Cash?
Documents?
I zoomed in.
Couldn’t tell.
But before he left, Raymond looked directly at the camera.
Then he raised one finger.
Not the middle one.
His index finger.
He pointed straight at the lens.
Like he wanted me to know.
He knew I was watching.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
One message.
STAY OUT OF THIS, OLD MAN.
Then another.
YOU ALREADY LOST THE WEDDING.
DON’T LOSE MORE.
I stared at the screen.
May you like
And for the first time since this nightmare began, I stopped feeling hurt.
I started feeling dangerous.
