Chapter 5: The Trap Closes
Selina's mouth opened.
Closed.
"You said — when you walked in, you said—"
"I said I had news," I told her.
"You assumed the rest."
That wasn't entirely true.
I had said it.
But I had said it quietly, to myself, standing behind the fence before I walked through the gate.
A test.
A thought spoken just loud enough to see who was listening.
Godfrey had been standing near the window.
I watched his face as the sequence assembled itself behind his eyes.
"You were outside," he said slowly.
"Before you came in.
I heard you say something about a settlement.
I thought—" He stopped.
"You thought what?"
He didn't answer.
But his phone was already in his hand, and I could see from where I stood that he had a text thread open.
Recent.
The preview showed Selina's name at the top.
"Show me the thread," I said.
"Damian, this is—"
"Show me."
He handed it over.
The messages had started forty minutes ago.
While I was still in the backyard with Phedra.
While Selina had been standing in the living room calling out about broken plates.
*Godfrey.
Damian is outside.
He heard something about a settlement.
A million dollars.
Do NOT say anything.
Let him talk.
If it's real we need to move fast before he does something stupid with it.*
Then, ten minutes later:
*Call the bank first thing tomorrow.
We need to know if there's a way to get ahead of this.
He trusts us.
Use that.*
Then, just before Godfrey's phone had rung with the call from Meridian Financial:
*Don't let Phedra get in his ear tonight.
Separate them if you can.*
I handed the phone back to Godfrey.
He held it like it had become something he didn't want to touch.
Selina was watching me.
She had stopped pretending to be reasonable.
"You set this up," she said.
"I came home to see my wife," I said.
"Everything else I found on my own."
"You recorded us."
"Phedra recorded herself.
Every time she managed to get to a phone.
She sent the files to my email months ago.
I didn't understand what I was listening to until tonight."
Phedra looked up at me.
"You had them the whole time?"
"I had them.
I didn't know what they meant.
I thought it was bad connection, background noise." I looked at her carefully.
"I should have listened sooner.
I'm sorry."
Her eyes filled.
She pressed her lips together and looked away.
Selina took a step toward me.
Her voice dropped, and for the first time I heard something in it that might have been real — not guilt, but fear.
"Damian.
I am your mother.
Whatever mistakes were made, I am still your mother.
You cannot take a lawyer into this family.
You cannot put us in front of a judge.
Think about what that does to all of us."
"I'm thinking about what the last eleven months did to Phedra."
"She is not your blood."
The sentence sat in the air between us.
Godfrey looked at the floor.
"She is my wife," I said.
"And she is more family to me than anyone in this room has been in four years."
I took out my phone and called a number I had saved three weeks earlier, before I bought the plane ticket, when I had first started to suspect that something was badly wrong.
It rang twice.
"Marcus," I said.
"It's Damian.
I need you tonight."
Marcus Osei was a family lawyer.
He was also the only person outside of Canada who had known I was coming home.
"I'm twenty minutes away," Marcus said.
"Is she safe?"
"She's with me."
"Then I'm on my way."
I ended the call.
Selina had not moved.
But the calculation behind her eyes had shifted into something harder, something that told me she was not finished.
"If you bring a lawyer into this house," she said, "I will call your uncle Bertrand.
He has known this family for thirty years.
He will stand with us.
And when it comes to the money — when it comes to any of it — his word will carry more weight than a recording made without consent."
I looked at her.
"Call him," I said.
She hadn't expected that.
"Call Uncle Bertrand right now," I said.
"Tell him everything.
Tell him about the loan in my name.
Tell him about the two doctor's visits.
Tell him about the shed.
Tell him about the necklace." I paused.
"And tell him about the text messages you sent Godfrey forty minutes ago, while your daughter-in-law was on her knees in the backyard."
Selina's hand moved toward her own phone.
Then stopped.
May you like
Outside, headlights swept across the front window.
Marcus had made it in fifteen minutes.
