Chapter 4 - The Velvet Box
The kitchen fell into a silence so absolute that the sound of the rain outside seemed to amplify until it roared like an ocean in my ears.
I didn't turn around to look at Daniel. I couldn't. I felt as though looking at him would physically destroy whatever sanity I had left holding me together.
Beside me, Officer Miller reached down, pulled a pair of heavy steel handcuffs from his tactical belt, and turned around slowly to face my husband.
"Daniel Carter," Miller said, his voice dropping into a terrifyingly calm, professional register. "You are under arrest for attempted capital murder of a minor, aggravated child abuse, and conspiracy to commit insurance and trust fraud."
"Wait!" Daniel shrieked, his voice breaking into a high-pitched, pathetic scream as he backed away toward the living room archway. "Wait! That video is fake! She modified it! She's an auditor, she knows how to edit video files! That isn't me! Evelyn wasn't here!"
Officer Collins moved with explosive, military speed.
Before Daniel could take three steps into the living room, Collins lunged forward, grabbed Daniel by the collar of his sweatpants, and drove him hard against the oak dining room table—the very table where he had held the velvet box hours earlier.
The cherry wood groaned under the impact. Daniel’s chin bounced off the polished surface with a loud crack.
"Hands behind your back!" Collins barked, twisting Daniel’s arm behind his spine until the steel cuff snapped shut around his right wrist with a loud, metallic click. "Stop resisting!"
"It was Evelyn!" Daniel wept, his face pressed flat against the wood, his tears smearing across the polished surface. "It was my mother! It was her idea! She set up the trust lawyers! She bought the magnets online from a supplier in China! She told me we were losing the house in Geneva! She said we needed the trust money to pay off the offshore debts! I didn't want to hurt Lily! She told me they would just make her sick enough to get Rachel arrested! She said they wouldn't hurt her!"
"Shut up!" Miller commanded, pulling Daniel up by his arm and snapping the second cuff onto his left wrist. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney—"
"Rachel!" Daniel screamed, turning his tear-streaked, terrified face toward me as Collins dragged him toward the front door. "Rachel, please! Call my mother! Tell her to call the lawyers! Please, Rachel, I’m your husband!"
I stood by the granite kitchen island, holding the small USB drive tightly in my fist.
I looked at him—at the man I had slept beside for seven years, the man who had held my hand in the delivery room when Lily was born, the man who had kissed my forehead when my father died. I didn't see a husband. I didn't see a human being. I saw a hollow, pathetic shell wrapped around absolute, unadulterated evil.
"I hope you rot in a cell for the rest of your life, Daniel," I said softly, my voice devoid of emotion. "And I'm going to personally make sure your mother is sitting in the cell right next to yours."
The officers dragged Daniel out through the front entrance. The heavy oak door slammed shut behind them, leaving me completely alone in the silent, empty house.
I didn't waste a single second.
I picked up my phone, plugged it into the kitchen wall charger, and waited thirty agonizing seconds for the screen to light up.
The moment the cellular signal connected, I dialed the direct line for the Naperville Police Department Dispatch.
"Dispatch, this is Officer James Miller's scene at Maple Shade Court," I said, my voice completely steady. "I need an emergency warrant issued for the immediate arrest of Evelyn Vance, currently residing at the Drake Hotel in downtown Chicago, or en route to O'Hare International Airport. She is an active co-conspirator in a child murder attempt and fleeing the jurisdiction."
"Understood, ma'am," the dispatcher replied. "Units are being dispatched to the Drake Hotel now."
I hung up the phone, grabbed my purse, my coat, and the USB drive containing the video files, and ran out into the rainy night toward my car.
I didn't care about the house. I didn't care about the trust money. I didn't care about the ruined marriage or the shattered life lying in pieces behind me.
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My five-year-old daughter was lying on an operating table three miles away, fighting for her life against thirty-six pieces of steel that her own father had fed her for money.
I backed my silver Pilot out of the driveway, slammed my foot onto the accelerator, and drove through the dark, flooded streets toward Edward Hospital.
