Chapter 5: What Was In Ryan's Left Pocket
I didn't take the phone.
I stood in front of that jacket for a long moment, Carol behind me in the kitchen doorway, and I made myself think clearly.
Taking it would give Ryan something to argue about later.
A reason to shift the story.
A way to make me the one who had done something wrong.
I took a photo instead.
Of the jacket.
Of the pocket.
Of the phone screen when I pressed the side button and the lock screen lit up.
Ryan's lock screen was a photo of Noah.
Age five, gap-toothed smile, sitting on Ryan's shoulders at a baseball game.
I stood there looking at it longer than I needed to.
Then I photographed the screen and stepped back.
Carol handed me a notepad and I wrote down the number from the Dad contact — I still had it in my memory from the screen Daniels had shown me.
I wrote it down carefully and folded the paper and put it in my own pocket.
"Okay," Carol said.
"Okay.
Come sit down."
David called at 3 a.m.
I sat at the kitchen table and listened to him explain, in the calm and organized way he explained everything, what the next seventy-two hours would likely look like.
Ryan would be processed.
Given the video evidence and Noah's direct testimony, there would almost certainly be charges.
A protective order was available and he would file for one first thing in the morning.
"What about custody?" I asked.
"With this evidence, temporary sole custody is very achievable," David said.
"The videos are significant, Emily.
Fourteen documented incidents over eight months.
A judge is going to take that seriously."
I exhaled.
"He's going to fight," I said.
"He's going to try," David said.
"But he's going to be fighting from a very weak position."
After I hung up, Carol made more coffee and we sat together in the quiet kitchen while Noah slept in the next room.
"There's something else," I said.
Carol waited.
"Ryan said something tonight.
When the officers first came in.
He said — I didn't mean for it to go this far." I looked at her.
"He wasn't talking about me."
"How do you know?"
"Because he looked scared in a different way.
Not caught-doing-something scared.
Scared like something had gone wrong that he hadn't planned for."
Carol turned her mug slowly on the table.
"What do you think he meant?"
"I don't know.
But that number — the one saved as Dad.
I think it matters."
The next morning, after two hours of sleep and a bowl of cereal I barely tasted, I called the number from the notepad.
It rang four times.
A woman answered.
"Ryan?" Her voice was careful.
Quiet.
Like she was somewhere she shouldn't be taking calls.
"No," I said.
"This is Emily.
Ryan's wife."
Silence.
"I think we should talk," I said.
More silence.
Then, very quietly: "How did you get this number?"
"It was saved in my phone," I said.
"Under Dad."
A sharp intake of breath on the other end.
"That was supposed to be deleted," she said.
"It wasn't."
Another pause.
When she spoke again, her voice had changed.
The caution was still there, but underneath it was something else.
Something that sounded almost like relief.
"My name is Jess," she said.
"And there are things you need to know.
Not about me and Ryan.
About Ryan and Marcus."
I gripped the notepad tighter.
"What about Marcus?" I asked.
"He's been using Ryan," Jess said.
"For two years.
Ryan didn't start it — but he let it keep going because he was afraid of what Marcus would do if he stopped."
"What did Marcus have on him?"
Jess was quiet for a moment.
"Can we meet?" she said.
"Not on the phone.
In person.
Somewhere public."
I looked across the kitchen at Carol, who was watching me with wide eyes.
May you like
"Yes," I said.
"Tell me where."
