Chapter 5 - What Happened Before the Attack
Wade took Ava’s phone from her hand.
“You have a habit of invading privacy.”
“Let him out.”
“There is no one in there.”
Tommy kicked the door from inside.
Wade’s smile vanished.
Ava backed toward the staircase.
“Mom!”
Wade caught her cardigan.
She twisted away.
Her hand struck a framed wedding photograph on the wall.
The glass shattered.
A sharp edge cut across her palm.
Wade grabbed her injured wrist.
Ava screamed.
He dragged her toward the room.
“You’re going inside until you calm down.”
She saw the fireplace tool mounted decoratively on the hallway wall.
With her free hand, she pulled it loose.
She swung once.
The metal struck Wade’s shoulder and glanced across the side of his head.
He released her.
Wade stumbled into the doorframe.
Ava ran downstairs.
By the time the adults reached the hallway, Wade had moved away from the locked room.
The fireplace tool lay near the staircase.
Ava stood above him with blood on her hand.
It looked exactly like the story he needed.
She had hidden her phone inside the flower arrangement before Wade caught her.
After the family took him downstairs, she retrieved it.
But she did not show the photographs immediately.
She was afraid they would disappear.
She was afraid Diane would believe Wade again.
Most of all, she was afraid Wade would move Tommy before Nathan arrived.
Now Nathan listened as Ava described everything.
Diane’s face crumpled.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did.”
The answer silenced her.
Ava had told her about the footsteps.
The latch.
The locked room.
Diane had accepted Wade’s explanations because accepting Ava’s meant questioning the man she planned to marry.
Wade looked toward the relatives.
“She struck me with metal. You all saw the result.”
Nathan replied, “After you grabbed her injured hand and tried to lock her in a room.”
“That is her story.”
Ava held up the phone.
“The camera recorded part of it.”
Wade went still.
She had accidentally activated video when her hand hit the screen.
The file did not show Tommy.
But it captured Wade’s voice.
You’re going inside until you calm down.
Then a child behind the door cried, “Don’t put her in here.”
May you like
Diane sank onto the sofa.
There had been another child upstairs during her wedding.
