Chapter 6 - MY MOTHER-IN-LAW ASKED FOR ONE MEETING
Patricia requested to see me again.
I said no.
Then she requested through her attorney.
No.
Then through a court-appointed victim liaison.
No.
Then she sent a letter.
I didn't open it.
Rachel wanted to burn it.
Dr. Park suggested I decide based on what helped me, not what punished Patricia.
That irritated me.
Sometimes therapists say intelligent things at extremely inconvenient times.
I eventually read the letter.
Ellie,
Ryan lied to both of us.
I know you hate me.
I understand why.
But if you let me explain what happened, I can tell you things the police don't know.
I stopped.
No apology.
Of course.
I read further.
I never intended for any of this to go as far as it did.
Ryan manipulated the recordings.
Linda manipulated the trust.
I was trying to protect my family.
There it was.
Family.
The word Patricia had used as a weapon for years.
I gave the letter to Maya.
“She wants a deal.”
“Yes.”
“Is she getting one?”
“Not immunity.”
“What does she know?”
“Apparently enough to interest prosecutors.”
Patricia claimed Ryan had discussed killing me.
Not vaguely.
Specifically.
She claimed she stopped him.
My stomach turned.
“Stopped him how?”
Maya looked uncomfortable.
“She says that is why they kept you alive.”
I laughed once.
“I'm supposed to thank her?”
“No.”
“Because she preferred torturing me to murdering me?”
“No one is asking you to thank anyone.”
“What does she want?”
“A reduced sentence for cooperation.”
I looked through the NICU window.
Gabe was gaining weight.
Three ounces in four days.
My whole universe had become ounces.
“Will her testimony help convict Ryan?”
“Yes.”
“Linda?”
“Possibly.”
“Cole?”
“He already pleaded.”
I hated the decision.
I hated that justice was not a clean room where bad people simply received equal punishment.
It was bargaining.
Evidence.
Credibility.
Strategy.
I finally agreed to one meeting.
Not alone.
Maya sat beside me.
My attorney, Jessica Lane, sat on my other side.
Patricia entered wearing county jail clothes.
No pearls.
No lipstick.
No expensive cardigan.
For the first time since I met her, Patricia Hayes looked ordinary.
She saw me.
Her face changed.
“You had the baby.”
I said nothing.
“A boy?”
I said nothing.
Her eyes filled.
I felt nothing.
That surprised me.
I had imagined rage.
Instead she looked like a stranger who knew too much about my scars.
“I am sorry,” she said.
My lawyer shifted slightly.
I kept staring.
Patricia swallowed.
“I know that means nothing.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes dropped.
“Ryan changed.”
“No.”
She looked up.
“What?”
“He didn't change.”
I heard my own voice becoming steady.
“You just stopped liking the version of him you helped create when it became dangerous to you.”
Patricia flinched.
“I was afraid of him.”
“So was I.”
“I didn't know what he would do.”
“You knew exactly what he did to me.”
Silence.
“You walked up those stairs every night.”
Tears slid down her face.
“You brought things into that attic.”
She closed her eyes.
“You watched.”
“I know.”
“No.”
I leaned forward.
“You know now because you're sitting in jail clothes.”
Her mouth tightened.
“You did not know when I was begging you.”
She began crying harder.
I felt no sympathy.
That frightened me too.
Then Dr. Park's voice returned from another conversation.
You are not required to produce compassion on demand.
So I didn't.
Patricia wiped her face.
“Ryan wanted you gone before the baby arrived.”
“How?”
“He talked about making your death look like complications.”
My fingers went numb.
My attorney spoke.
“Details.”
Patricia looked at the observation window.
“Medication. Bleeding. He kept asking whether pregnancy could hide something.”
My stomach turned.
“He searched it?”
“Yes.”
“Did you help?”
She hesitated.
My lawyer leaned forward.
“Patricia.”
“Yes.”
There.
Truth.
Ugly.
Undeniable.
“I told him it was too dangerous.”
“For whom?”
She looked at me.
“You.”
I almost laughed.
“Try again.”
She lowered her head.
“For all of us.”
Of course.
Patricia continued.
“That was when Linda got involved.”
“Bluehouse.”
Her eyes widened.
“You know.”
“We know everything.”
Not everything.
But she believed me.
That mattered.
“Linda said nobody needed to die.”
Patricia whispered.
“She said if the videos made you look unstable enough, we could arrange treatment after the birth.”
“Institutionalize me.”
“Yes.”
“And take Gabe.”
She flinched at the name.
“That's what you named him?”
I ignored it.
“Take my son.”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“Ryan would control the trust.”
“And you?”
“I would manage the money.”
“And Linda?”
“She believed eventually Ryan would destroy himself.”
I stared.
“They were all planning against each other.”
Patricia laughed bitterly.
“You have no idea.”
“Actually, I think I do.”
She looked at me.
“You were the only one who wasn't.”
Those words stayed with me.
I had been the captive.
The weakest person in the house.
Yet I had been the only one not betraying everyone else.
Patricia gave prosecutors a hidden cloud-account password.
Inside were messages Ryan believed deleted.
One was a video.
He recorded himself alone.
Talking to subscribers.
“After the baby's here, she'll probably disappear for a while. Might be able to do a whole institutional series if I can get access.”
I stopped the playback.
That was enough.
Another file documented him researching postpartum psychiatric facilities.
Another showed him practicing what he would tell doctors.
My wife has paranoid delusions.
She thinks my mother poisoned her.
She believes people are filming her.
A defense prepared by making the truth sound insane before I could speak it.
The prosecution added attempted-conspiracy charges.
Then Ryan did something nobody expected.
He asked to see me.
Not through his lawyer.
He recorded a jail call to Rachel.
“Tell Ellie I know where her old phone backup is.”
Rachel hung up.
Maya listened to the recording.
“He's fishing.”
“For what?”
“To know whether all your footage survived.”
I smiled.
“Then let him wonder.”
The trial was scheduled for five months later.
Gabe came home from the hospital after forty-two days.
I moved into Rachel's small house.
She gave me her bedroom.
I refused.
She ignored me.
For weeks, I slept with Gabe's bassinet against my bed.
Every sound woke me.
Sometimes I checked his breathing ten times an hour.
Sometimes the smell of formula made me sick because it reminded me of the attic.
Sometimes footsteps on Rachel's stairs turned my body to ice.
Healing was not triumphant.
It was embarrassing.
Slow.
Exhausting.
Then one morning, Gabe smiled.
Not gas.
Not random muscle movement.
A real smile.
At me.
I laughed so loudly Rachel ran in.
“What?”
“He smiled.”
She stared.
Then began crying.
“Why are you crying?”
“You're crying.”
I touched my face.
I was.
That afternoon a courier delivered a certified envelope.
The return address belonged to Ryan's attorney.
Inside was a proposed plea deal.
Ryan would plead guilty to reduced charges.
In exchange, he wanted one condition.
Every unreleased recording seized from his computers would be sealed permanently and destroyed after appeals.
My lawyer called.
“He's afraid of the evidence being public.”
“So am I.”
“I know.”
I looked at Gabe sleeping on my chest.
“What sentence?”
“Possibly twelve to fifteen years.”
“How much at trial?”
“If convicted on the major counts? Decades.”
“And Patricia?”
“She's cooperating.”
I stared at the ceiling.
Ryan wanted control again.
Even now.
A deal.
A condition.
A way to decide what happened to the recordings.
I handed the papers to Rachel.
“Tell Jessica no.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“What if the videos become public?”
I looked at my son.
“That terrifies me.”
“Then—”
“But I spent seven months doing whatever Ryan wanted because I was afraid of what happened if I said no.”
May you like
I kissed Gabe's forehead.
“He doesn't get another yes from me because I'm scared.”
