Chapter 2 - Eleven Months of Battery Life
I locked the office door.
Marlene stared at me as the deadbolt clicked.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure you don’t leave with this.”
I placed Caroline’s phone on the desk.
Lily remained against the wall.
I wanted to go to her immediately, but Marlene’s handbag lay open on the chair and my dead wife’s phone sat between us like something pulled from a grave.
“Daniel,” Marlene said carefully, “you are upset.”
“You think?”
“You struck me.”
“And you assaulted my daughter.”
“I was disciplining her.”
“You covered her mouth.”
“She was screaming.”
“Because you were on top of her.”
Marlene’s jaw tightened.
I turned to Lily.
“Did Grandma hurt you anywhere else?”
She shook her head.
“What happened before I came in?”
Marlene stepped forward.
“She doesn’t need to be interrogated.”
I raised one hand.
“Not another word.”
Lily’s eyes moved toward the phone.
“She said I wasn’t supposed to touch it.”
My stomach tightened.
“You saw the phone?”
Lily nodded.
“Where?”
“Grandma had it on your desk.”
Marlene exhaled sharply.
“She’s confused.”
“I’m not confused,” Lily whispered.
I crossed to my daughter and crouched in front of her.
“What was Grandma doing with it?”
Lily looked at Marlene.
Marlene stared back.
I shifted until my body blocked the view.
“You can tell me.”
“She plugged it into your computer.”
I looked toward the laptop docking station.
A charging cable still hung from the side.
My skin went cold.
“When?”
“A little before you came home.”
“Did she say anything?”
Lily wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand.
“She said, ‘Come on, Caroline. Give me one more thing.’”
Marlene’s face drained.
I stood.
“That’s enough,” she said.
“No. We’re nowhere near enough.”
I picked up the phone.
The device asked for a six-digit passcode.
I tried the number Caroline and I had once used for the garage keypad.
Wrong.
Our anniversary.
Wrong.
Lily’s birthday.
Wrong.
After the third attempt, I stopped.
I wasn’t risking a lockout.
“How long have you had it?”
Marlene folded her arms.
“I found it recently.”
“Where?”
“In your father’s things.”
My father, Richard Carter, had died four months before Caroline.
His estate had been inventoried twice.
I had personally gone through his study with Marlene and our estate attorney, Evan Sloan.
“There was no phone.”
“You didn’t inspect every box.”
“Evan did.”
A flicker crossed her face.
It disappeared quickly.
Too quickly.
I picked up her handbag.
“What else did you bring into my house?”
She rushed toward me.
I held it away.
“Daniel, stop.”
I emptied nothing.
I didn’t need to.
The phone was enough to call an attorney, preserve evidence, and start asking questions.
Then Caroline’s phone vibrated again.
A second notification appeared.
This one was not from a file-upload service.
It was a message preview.
E.S.: Delete the local copy before Daniel gets home.
I stared at the initials.
Marlene looked toward the door.
My heartbeat slowed in the worst possible way.
Evan Sloan.
My father’s estate attorney.
My family’s attorney for fourteen years.
The man who had stood beside me at Caroline’s funeral.
I lifted the phone.
“Is E.S. Evan?”
Marlene said nothing.
The phone vibrated a third time.
E.S.: Marlene, answer me.
May you like
Her silence gave me everything I needed.
📖 Read what happened when I confronted the attorney who helped settle Caroline’s death—and why one missing document made Marlene’s lie even more dangerous in CHAPTER 3. 👇
