Mia shook her head. “My mom never got money from you. We got eviction notices. We got hospital bills. We got late fees and shut-off warnings.”
Daniel looked genuinely shaken by that. For the first time, his anger cracked.
“That’s not possible,” he said.
“Everything about this is possible,” I said. “Look around you.”
He took a step back as if the room itself had turned against him.
Then, without warning, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his phone. His face changed as he looked at the screen. Fear again. This time, deeper.
“What is it?” I asked.
He did not answer.
His phone began to ring in his hand. The name on the screen was large enough for both of us to see.
Greg Holloway.
Mia made a small sound beside me, and her hand flew to her mouth.
I looked at her. “You know that name.”
She nodded slowly, horror spreading across her face. “That’s my aunt’s boyfriend,” she whispered. “The man I ran away from.”
Daniel went completely still.
I stared from Mia to the phone in my son’s hand, and a cold, deadly understanding began to open inside me.
Then Daniel declined the call, looked straight at Mia, and said the words that turned my blood to ice.
“You need to leave right now. He knows where you are.”
For one second, nobody moved.
Then I locked the front door.
The metal click sounded louder than it should have, like a judge’s hammer striking a bench.
Daniel stared at me. “What are you doing?”
“Making sure nobody walks in or out until you tell the truth.”
“Mom, this is serious.”
“Yes,” I said. “I know that now.”
Mia had gone pale all over again. She backed toward the children’s reading corner, hugging herself so tightly it looked like she was trying to hold her own body together.
“That man,” she whispered. “Greg. He found me before. He told my aunt I was trouble. He used to come into the room and stand there just watching me. My mom never liked him. She said he smiled with his mouth and not with his eyes.”
I turned slowly to Daniel. “Why does your phone have his number?”
Daniel dragged a hand down his face. “Because he works for me.”
Everything inside me seemed to stop.
Mia let out a broken gasp.
“What?”
“No,” I said, though I was not denying it. I was simply buying my heart one more second before it shattered. “No. Say that again.”
Daniel looked sick now, but he said it anyway. “Greg handles security for one of my offices.”
The room spun.
Mia shook her head hard. “No, no, no, no. He knew you.”
Daniel did not answer.
“He knew you,” she said again, louder, tears filling her eyes. “That’s why he looked at me like that. That’s why he kept asking questions about my mom before she died. That’s why he wanted to know if she still had old papers.”
