PART 6
I moved to the bedroom door and looked down the stairs.
A man in a gray suit stood on the porch holding a leather folder.
Beside him was a notary stamp case.
My wife’s rescue had arrived.
Or maybe her witness.
I turned to Vanessa.
“You invited someone here tonight?”
Her mouth moved.
No sound came out.
I picked up my phone and called the police.
Vanessa rushed toward me.
“Ethan, stop. Please. This is our marriage.”
I looked at my mother on the floor.
“No,” I said. “This is a crime scene.”
Twenty minutes later, two officers from the county sheriff’s department stood in my mother’s bedroom watching the recordings.
The man in the gray suit was a real estate attorney named Paul Hensley.
He sat downstairs in the living room, sweating through his confidence.
He claimed Vanessa told him my mother had agreed to transfer partial ownership of the house as “estate planning.”
He claimed he knew nothing about threats.
He claimed a lot of things.
Then the officers played the clip where his voice came through the phone.
His story fell apart faster than Vanessa’s fake tears.
My mother sat on the bed with a blanket around her shoulders while a paramedic checked her wrist.
Vanessa stood near the dresser, crying now that crying had become useful.
“You’re really going to do this to me?” she said.
May you like
I stared at her.
“To you?”
