Chapter 7: Ellis Comes to the Door
Nothing was obviously disturbed.
That was the first thing I noticed.
Whoever had been inside had been careful.
The suitcase was still against the wall.
The photograph from the envelope was still where I'd left it, face-down on the kitchen counter.
The prepaid phone was in my coat pocket.
The storage box was in my car trunk.
But the second interior pocket of my suitcase — the one where I had found Noah's card — was open.
The fabric at the bottom had been pulled back and left that way.
Whoever had searched it hadn't bothered to hide the fact that they'd found what they were looking for.
Or they wanted me to know they had.
I called Diane from the prepaid phone.
"Someone was in my apartment," I said.
"Are you inside right now?"
"Yes."
"Leave.
Go somewhere public.
Don't go back tonight."
I drove to a chain hotel near the airport and paid cash for one night.
I sat on the edge of the bed with the prepaid phone in my hand and tried to think clearly.
At 11:14 p.m., my regular phone rang.
Ellis.
I answered.
"You went to see someone today," he said.
No greeting.
His voice was the same voice he'd used in fifteen years of marriage when he wanted me to understand that a conversation was already over.
"A woman in a diner on Sullivant Avenue."
"I had coffee," I said.
"Sabrina." A pause.
"I'm trying to give you a chance here.
I'm trying to be reasonable.
Whatever you think you've found, whatever someone has told you — you don't understand what you're getting involved in."
"Then explain it to me."
"I can't explain it to you.
That's the point." His voice dropped slightly.
"There are people connected to this who are not like me.
Who don't have any reason to be careful with you.
Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"Are you threatening me, Ellis?"
"I'm warning you.
There's a difference."
"Is there?"
A long silence.
"I can make this easy," he said.
"Sign the final settlement documents.
Take the money I offered.
Move somewhere quiet and start over.
Noah will be fine.
He'll visit you in the summers.
We can make this civilized."
"You forged my signature on four property transfers."
The silence that followed was different from the ones before it.
"You don't know what you're talking about," he said.
But his voice had changed.
Something underneath it had shifted.
"October, fourteen months ago," I said.
"The Dublin property.
I was home with Noah.
He had a chest infection.
I have the pharmacy receipts, Ellis.
I have the texts I sent you asking you to come home.
I have two years of financial records that your attorney didn't know existed."
Nothing.
"And I've already shared them," I said.
"All of it."
"Sabrina—"
"I'm not signing anything.
I'm not moving anywhere.
And if you send anyone else into my apartment, I will call Raymond Cho directly and tell him you've been interfering with a federal witness."
The line went completely quiet.
Then Ellis said, very softly: "You have no idea what you've just done."
"I think I do," I said, and ended the call.
My hands were shaking.
I set the phone on the nightstand and pressed them flat against my thighs until they steadied.
The room was very quiet.
Then the prepaid phone buzzed.
A text from Diane.
*Cho executed the warrant at 6 a.m.
tomorrow.
Atlanta and Columbus simultaneously.
Stay where you are tonight.
I'll call you in the morning.*
I read the message three times.
Then I lay back on the hotel bed, still in my coat, and stared at the ceiling.
Somewhere in Atlanta, in a house I had never seen, my son was asleep.
May you like
By morning, everything would be different.
I just didn't know yet if different meant safe.
