Chapter 10 - Blood in the Water
By the middle of December, the Peterson family had completely disintegrated into open warfare.
The criminal case against Megan was moving with terrifying speed. Because of the clear, unedited audio recording from Lily’s smartwatch and the certified trauma documentation from Lurie Children’s, the Cook County State's Attorney refused every single plea deal Megan’s defense lawyers proposed.
They weren't offering probation. They weren't offering a diversion program. They were demanding ninety days in the Cook County Department of Corrections, five hundred hours of community service, and ten years on the state child abuse registry.
The pressure inside the small, rented Lincoln Park condo where Frank, Carol, and Megan were forced to live was explosive.
At three o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon, my phone rang while I was sitting in my new private office in Naples, reviewing the final closing documents for the transfer of the Dearborn brownstone.
The caller ID displayed an unknown Chicago landline.
I answered and put it on speaker.
“Chloe?”
The voice was unrecognizable at first. It was thin, shaking, and hoarse, like an old woman who had been shouting until her vocal cords gave out.
It was Carol Peterson.
“Carol,” I said, not shifting an inch in my chair. “You are violating the emergency protective order by calling this number.”
“Don’t hang up!” Carol wept—not the theatrical, manipulative crying she had used on Thanksgiving night, but the raw, frantic wailing of someone whose entire universe had turned to ash. “Chloe, please! I am begging you! On my knees, I am begging you!”
I reached for the recording switch on my desk console. “State your business, Carol.”
“You have to drop the charges against Megan!” Carol sobbed. “The prosecutor says the only way they’ll reduce it to a misdemeanor is if you sign a victim impact waiver! If Megan goes to jail, she’ll kill herself! She can’t survive in a place like that! She’s fragile, Chloe! She has panic attacks!”
“Your daughter wasn’t fragile when she struck my five-year-old child across the face,” I said, every syllable hitting like a drop of freezing water. “She felt very strong then. She felt powerful enough to call Lily a brat in front of six adults.”
“It was a mistake!” Carol screamed, her voice cracking into a high, hysterical register. “We admit it! We were wrong! Frank is sick, Chloe! He had a mini-stroke on Sunday! We don’t have health insurance anymore because the corporate policy was cancelled when Peterson Crest folded! We’re living on Frank’s social security check! We can’t afford Megan’s lawyers!”
“Then she can use a public defender,” I said. “Like the thousands of people Frank Peterson spent forty years pricing out of their homes.”
“How can you be so cruel?” Carol’s voice suddenly flipped from begging to venom, the old monster rearing its head through the tears. “You stole our home! You gave our family house to common street people! You ruined Mark! He’s working as a night manager at a car rental agency near the airport! He lives in a motel room with a hot plate! Does that make you happy? Does seeing my son destroyed satisfy your sick, peasant vengeance?”
I felt a cold, clear stillness settle over my chest.
“Mark destroyed himself, Carol,” I said. “He watched his sister hit his child, and he told me not to make a scene. He made his choice. Just like you made yours.”
In the background of the call, a door slammed violently.
I heard Megan screaming in the background:
*‘Give me that phone! Hang up on her! Stop begging that bitch for mercy!’*
*‘Megan, shut up!’* Frank’s voice—weak, slurred, and barely audible—rasped from somewhere across the room. *‘You put us here! You and your disgusting arrogance! You ruined this family!’*
*‘I ruined this family?!’* Megan shrieked, her voice getting closer to the receiver as she struggled with Carol. *‘You’re the one who lost sixty million dollars on commercial real estate, you pathetic old failure! You were broke before I ever touched that little brat!’*
The sound of physical scuffling tore through the phone line. A lamp smashed against the floor. Carol began screaming in terror.
*‘Megan, stop! Don’t touch your father!’*
*‘Get off me! Both of you die! I hope you both die in this filthy apartment!’*
The phone dropped to the floor with a loud, plastic crack.
I could hear Frank sobbing, Carol screaming for an ambulance, and the heavy, furious stomping of Megan’s boots slamming out the front door into the hallway.
Then the line went dead.
I sat alone in my sunlit office in Florida for a long moment, listening to the gentle hum of the air conditioner and the distant call of seagulls over the bay.
I felt no satisfaction. I felt no triumph.
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I only felt the profound, chilling relief of a mother who had managed to pull her child out of a burning house seconds before the roof collapsed on everyone inside.
***
