Chapter 4 - The Voice on the Other End
The clock on the dashboard read 3:14 AM by the time Ben and I carried Lily into our house. We lived in a restored Craftsman four miles from the historic district—close enough that Arthur had insisted on paying for the upgraded cedar fencing when we bought it three years ago, an offer Ben had flatly refused.
Lily didn't wake when Ben laid her down in her crib. She only turned her face into her plush rabbit, her breathing rhythmic and heavy under the influence of the pediatric pain relievers. Ben pulled a rocking chair directly alongside the crib, sat down with his arms crossed over his chest, and looked at me.
"I’m not sleeping," he said.
"I know," I replied. "I’ll be in the kitchen."
I walked down the dark hallway, leaving the lights off, letting my feet find the familiar hardwood boards. The kitchen smelled of yesterday’s cinnamon rolls and fresh laundry—a normal life, a safe life, shattered four hours ago by the snap of a leather belt.
I sat at the breakfast bar, laid the scrap of index card beside my phone, and dialed.
The phone rang four times. Five times. I was about to hang up, assuming the number was dead, when a sharp click opened the line.
No one said hello. There was only the low, ambient rush of coastal wind and the metallic clinking of tools against steel.
"Eli?" I said.
A pause stretched out, so long that I could hear the faint, measured rhythm of breathing on the other end.
"Claire," the voice said. It was deeper than the voice I held in my childhood memories, gravelly and thickened by years of salt air and disuse, but the underlying cadence was unmistakably my brother. "Is she alive?"
The question wasn't *how are you*, or *why are you calling*. He knew. He had always known.
"Lily is three," I said, the first sob finally breaking through the iron discipline I had maintained for five hours. "She had juice. She knocked it over, Eli. And he... he used his belt."
On the other end of the line, the metallic clinking stopped completely. The silence became absolute, freezing the air between North Carolina and the Pacific Northwest.
"Did she hit the island?" Eli asked.
I froze. "How did you know that?"
"Because that’s where he backed you up when you were four," Eli said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "The southeast corner of the kitchen island. That’s where the counter forms a sharp right angle. He likes to corner people there because there's nowhere to roll away."
A cold sweat broke out across my collarbones. For twenty-two years, I had suffered from a recurring nightmare of being trapped against cold marble, unable to breathe, looking up at a towering figure. I had told my college therapists it was an anxiety manifestation. It wasn't an anxiety manifestation. It was a memory.
"Helen said you have the papers," I whispered.
"I have more than the papers, Claire," Eli replied. "I have Eleanor’s bank records from 2001 through 2003. When they threw me out, I didn't just leave. I went into the floor safe in Dad’s study while they were at the country club celebrating my 'departure.' I took three ledgers. They don't just show Arthur’s violence; they show who he paid off to bury the hospital records at St. Jude’s when he broke Mom’s wrist in ninety-eight."
"Mom's wrist?" I shook my head, my mind spinning. "She told us she fell on the tennis court."
"Mom was his accomplice, Claire, not his victim. Well—she was his victim first, and then she decided being his manager was more profitable. She traded her silence for absolute control of the family trusts. If you take Arthur down, she goes with him, and she will burn the entire city to ash before she lets that happen."
"Eli, I need you here," I said, my voice cracking. "The local precinct is already circling the wagons. Vance is running the defense, Abernathy is handling the magistrate filings, and Paige is posting on social media that Lily tripped."
"Paige was eight when I left," Eli said, a faint trace of sorrow bleeding into his voice. "She doesn't know any better. She only knows how to survive, and in that house, survival means licking the hand that holds the whip."
"Will you come back?"
"I bought a plane ticket two hours ago, Claire," Eli said simply. "Helen texted me the code word we set up in nineteen ninety-nine. I land at Charlotte Douglas at nine tomorrow morning. Don't pick me up at the terminal. Meet me at the diner off Exit 42. And Claire?"
"Yes?"
May you like
"Tell Ben to buy a shotgun. Because once Arthur realizes I’m back in the county, he won't be sending Richard Vance with motions. He’ll be coming himself."
***
