Chapter 5
They didn't go quietly.
A week after Adrian confronted his mother, a social worker knocked on my door.
An anonymous tip, she said. Allegations of neglect. Unsafe living conditions. Drug use in the home.
I felt my blood run cold.
Victoria.
The social worker inspected my apartment. She checked the fridge. The children's rooms. She asked me questions. She drug-tested me. I passed everything. My apartment was clean. The children were healthy. I had a job.
But while the investigation was open, Adrian's time with the children was supervised. We couldn't be alone together. It was a nightmare.
Victoria had filed for custody. She claimed she was the children's "psychological mother" — that she'd been engaged to Adrian and planned to raise them, and that I was an unfit, unstable woman who'd kidnapped them.
It was absurd. But with money and lawyers, absurd can go a long way.
The court date was set. I was terrified. I'd never been in a courtroom. I'd never had to fight for my children like this.
Adrian hired the best family lawyer in the state. He paid for everything. He came to every appointment. He held my hand through every deposition.
But the stress was eating me alive. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. Lily started having nightmares. Mia was fussy and clingy.
Then Margaret found something else.
She'd been going through her old files — boxes she'd kept in her garage. And she found a recording.
A voicemail. Victoria, leaving a message for Eleanor, three days before I "died."
"—it's done. The body's been matched. The dental records are being altered as we speak. Adrian will be told by the end of the week. He'll be devastated, of course. But I'll be there. I'll take care of him. And in a year, he'll marry me. And that little gold-digger and her brat will be gone forever."
I listened to it three times. My hands were shaking.
"She knew I was pregnant," I whispered. "She called Lily a brat. She knew. And she still did it."
Adrian's face was white with rage.
"We give this to the police," he said. "This is conspiracy. Fraud. Manslaughter — that Jane Doe, whoever she was, they used her body. This is criminal."
We did. The police opened an investigation. The recording was authenticated. Margaret's notebook was entered as evidence. The emails were traced.
The custody case was dismissed. The social worker closed the investigation. Victoria's allegations were proven false — and the recording proved she'd made them maliciously.
But Victoria and Eleanor didn't surrender. They hired a team of lawyers. They fought every subpoena. They delayed every hearing.
Money can buy time. But it can't buy the truth.
And the truth was coming for them.
One night, after the girls were asleep, Adrian and I sat on the balcony of the house he'd rented for us — a real house, with a yard, with a fence, with a security system. He'd moved us there the day the threats started.
"Clara," he said, taking my hand. "I know you're afraid. I know I haven't earned your trust. But I'm going to. Every day, for the rest of my life, I'm going to earn it. And when this is over — when they're in prison and we're free — I want to do this right. I want to date you. I want to take you to dinner. I want to build something. With you. With the girls."
I looked at him. In the moonlight, his face was open and honest and completely mine.
May you like
"I'd like that," I said.
And for the first time in two years, I let myself hope.
