Chapter 8: The Seventy-Two Hours
By nine the next morning, Patricia had filed three documents: the divorce petition, the protective order application, and a formal evidence submission to the DA's office that included the burn photographs, the Melissa messages, the property scheme thread, the threatening text, the envelope photograph, and Ryan's message to Brooke.
By ten-thirty, the protective order had been granted on an emergency basis.
Ryan, Grant, and Diane Calloway were legally prohibited from entering the penthouse or contacting me directly.
The locksmith arrived at eleven.
I stood in the entryway of my own home while he worked, looking at the space Grant had called his house two nights ago.
The broken crystal had been swept up — Diane's doing, probably, some reflex of tidiness in the middle of chaos.
The embroidered runner was still on the floor where it had fallen.
The table was bare.
The locksmith finished and handed me two new keys.
I put them both in my coat pocket and walked through every room.
The master bedroom still had Ryan's things.
His suits in the closet, his watch on the nightstand, a book open face-down on his side of the bed like he'd expected to come back to it.
I didn't touch any of it.
Patricia had told me to leave his belongings exactly as they were until we had a formal inventory.
I stood in the doorway of the room that was going to be the nursery.
We'd painted it four months ago.
A soft grey-green that Ryan had called too muted and I had loved immediately.
The crib was assembled in the corner.
A small mobile hung above it — wooden birds, hand-painted, that I'd ordered from a maker in Vermont.
I sat in the glider in the corner and put my hand on my stomach.
"It's going to be different than I planned," I said quietly.
"But it's going to be okay."
My phone rang.
Patricia.
"Grant's attorney called this morning," she said.
"They want to discuss a settlement.
They're proposing Ryan relinquishes any claim to the penthouse in exchange for you withdrawing the DA referral."
I stood up from the glider.
"No."
"I told them you'd say that.
I want you to hear the rest." A pause.
"Grant is also proposing a financial payment.
Significant.
In exchange for a full non-disclosure agreement covering last night's incident and all related communications."
"He burned me," I said.
"While Ryan held me down.
While I was pregnant.
And he wants me to sign an NDA."
"Yes."
"No," I said again.
"Not for any amount."
"Good." Patricia's voice was firm and warm at once.
"I'll communicate that.
Claire, the DA called me an hour ago.
They want to move quickly on the Grant Calloway matter.
The fraudulent billing case they've been building — your messages are the connective tissue they needed.
They're looking at charges that go well beyond what happened to you."
"What kind of charges?"
"Wire fraud.
Bid-rigging on city contracts.
Potentially conspiracy." She paused.
"Grant has been doing this for years.
You're not the first person he tried to maneuver.
You're just the first one who had the evidence."
I looked out the nursery window at the Denver skyline, grey and cold under January clouds.
"What happens now?"
"Now we let the process work.
You focus on your health and your baby.
I handle Ryan's attorneys.
The DA handles Grant." A pause.
"And you stay away from all of them."
"What about Brooke?"
"Brooke has been formally interviewed.
She was cooperative, thorough, and credible.
Her statement about the Melissa message and Ryan's threat has been entered into the record." Patricia's voice softened slightly.
"She asked me to tell you she was sorry it took her this long."
I pressed my lips together.
"Tell her it didn't take her long," I said.
"Tell her she spoke up when it counted."
I ended the call and sat back down in the glider.
The mobile above the crib turned slowly in the heat from the vent.
The wooden birds went around and around in their quiet circle.
I thought about the night two nights ago.
The cigarette.
The crash of crystal.
The look on Grant's face when he realized I wasn't leaving.
I thought about Ryan's text: *Is that what you want for our baby?*
Yes, I thought.
I want my baby to grow up knowing that some things are not negotiable.
That a person can be shaking and still not put the phone down.
That patience is a virtue and silence is sometimes a trap, and knowing the difference is the whole thing.
My phone buzzed.
A number I didn't recognize.
I almost didn't answer.
"Claire?" A woman's voice.
May you like
Uncertain.
"This is Melissa Carr."
