Chapter 4: The Midnight Audit
The next four hours were a slow-motion nightmare. The “treatment” for my pre-term labor involved magnesium drips that made me feel like my blood was made of liquid fire. Every time a nurse entered the room, I flinched, expecting David or his father to be standing behind them with a court order to commit me.
At 4:15 AM, my phone buzzed under my pillow. A single photo arrived.
It was a picture of a thick, black leather-bound ledger sitting on the familiar mahogany desk of the Plano house. Next to it was a stack of five passports—all with David’s face, but all with different names: David Vane, Daniel Vance, Victor David.
“Got it,” the text from Wyatt read. “Also found a duffel bag packed with $200k in vacuum-sealed cash hidden in the floorboards. I’m at the precinct now. Speaking with Ramirez. Hang on, Claire.”
I let out a sob that shook my entire body, a release of three years of terror. He had done it.
At 6:00 AM, the door to my room swung open with a violent click. It wasn’t a nurse. It wasn’t Wyatt.
It was Richard Vance.
The elder Vance was a silver-haired shark in a three-piece charcoal suit. He didn’t look at me with pity; he looked at me like a stain on an expensive Persian carpet he intended to scrub away. He carried a leather briefcase that probably cost more than my mother’s car.
