Chapter 5 - The Locked Bedroom
On the morning James reached Chicago, Emily tried to escape.
Ryan had left for a Guard meeting. Linda was downstairs speaking loudly on the phone.
Emily packed a small bag with baby clothes, identification documents, the recorder, and the medical records she had managed to photograph.
She moved carefully because every part of her body hurt.
At the top of the stairs, Linda appeared.
“Where are you going?”
Emily gripped the bag.
“To the hospital.”
“I will drive you.”
“No.”
Linda looked at the bag.
Then at Emily.
“You contacted someone.”
Emily said nothing.
Linda moved between her and the stairs.
“Ryan has sacrificed everything for you.”
“He took my money.”
“He invested it.”
“He hurt me.”
Linda’s face tightened. “A wife does not destroy her husband over private mistakes.”
“A mother does not help conceal them.”
Linda reached for the bag. Emily pulled back.
During the struggle, the recorder fell onto the floor.
Linda stared at it.
The color drained from her face.
“What is that?”
Emily ran toward the bedroom, locked the door, and pushed a chair beneath the handle.
Linda pounded on the other side.
“Open this door.”
Emily called emergency services from the old tablet, but the wireless connection failed before she could give the full address.
Then she heard Linda calling Ryan.
“She recorded everything,” Linda said. “Come home now.”
Emily dragged a small dresser in front of the door.
Her baby shifted painfully inside her.
She sat on the floor and tried to breathe.
Ryan arrived twenty minutes later.
He did not shout at first.
“Emily,” he said through the door, “open it so we can talk.”
She remained silent.
“You are putting stress on the baby.”
Still nothing.
His voice changed.
“You have no idea what you are doing to my career.”
The door shook as he pushed against it.
Emily crawled toward the far side of the bed.
“Give me the recorder,” Ryan demanded.
“No.”
“Everything I have done was for this family.”
“You did it for yourself.”
The door burst inward, forcing the dresser aside.
Ryan entered.
Linda closed the bedroom door behind him.
What followed lasted less than five minutes, but Emily would remember it in fragments.
Ryan demanding the recorder.
Linda searching the drawers.
The sewing box falling open.
Ryan taking the tablet.
Emily trying to reach the hallway.
His hand closing around her arm.
Her back striking the mattress.
The blanket being pulled over her while Linda insisted she remain quiet until they decided what to do.
Then a sound came from downstairs.
The front door opening.
Ryan froze.
A man’s voice called through the house.
“Emily Bennett?”
May you like
She recognized the voice immediately.
Her father had come.
