“Eat slowly, sweetheart,” I said gently, sitting beside her on the edge of the king-sized bed and kissing her temple. “You’re safe now. No one is going to yell at you. No one is going to make you scrub another floor.”
She looked up at me, her eyes filled with an unbearable mixture of love and shame. “I wanted to tell you, Connor. I tried so many times on the phone. But every time you called, she stood right behind me holding a heavy wooden spoon or threatening to call the police on me. She told me you knew everything—that you agreed with her that I was a burden and that I needed to be taught how to be a real wife.”
A wave of nausea hit me so hard I had to close my eyes. My mother had used my demanding work schedule against us both, creating a terrifying wall of psychological abuse that kept Amy trapped in a prison of fear while keeping me completely blind in the dark.
“I didn't know, Amy,” I whispered, taking her burned hands into mine and kissing each tender mark. “I swear to God, if I had known even a fraction of this, I would have burned that house to the ground to get to you. I failed you, but I will fix this.”
Once Amy and Frederick were fast asleep—my son tucked safely in the center of the bed, his breathing finally deep and even—I called my long-time friend, David Vance, a private investigator and former homicide detective who ran a firm in Nashville. Within thirty minutes, David met me in the hotel lobby.
“Connor, you look like you’ve been through a war,” David said, pushing a cup of black coffee toward me across the small table.
“I might as well have been,” I replied, my voice raspy. “My mother and my cousin just tried to steal my property, and they’ve been abusing Amy for months. But there’s more to it, David. There’s a safe hidden in the floorboards of the master guest room. I need to get back into that house and see what else she’s been hiding.”
David set his mug down, his expression hardening. “If the police processed the scene as a domestic call, they might not have cleared the whole house for a financial search yet unless they have a broader warrant. I can come with you as a witness and secure the evidence before anyone else gets to it.”
We drove back to my house under the cover of midnight. The street was quiet now, the empty luxury cars gone, leaving behind only the litter of paper plates and shattered glass on my lawn. Walking into my own home felt surreal; it smelled of stale alcohol, burnt fat, and harsh cleaning chemicals.
We headed straight for the guest bedroom where Teresa had been staying. The room was meticulously decorated, paid for entirely with the three thousand dollars I had sent her every month. Expensive silk drapes hung from the windows, and a plush vanity table was covered in high-end cosmetics. Meanwhile, my wife had been sitting on a cheap plastic stool in the kitchen wearing rags. The contrast made my blood boil.