Chapter 16 - The Box Beneath the Fence
The three women were not wives.
One was a former girlfriend.
One was a business partner.
One was a woman Daniel briefly dated during the years between Rebecca and me.
All three had stories.
Missing money.
Threats.
False claims about their mental health.
Documents they did not remember signing.
One woman had spent nine days in a private facility after Daniel convinced her parents she was suicidal.
She had never been suicidal.
Her name was Allison Reed.
When Detective Ortiz showed her Sloan’s company records, Allison began shaking.
Meridian had transported her too.
The pattern turned my case from horrifying to systematic.
Prosecutors brought in state investigators.
Then federal financial investigators became interested in the shell companies.
Daniel’s world grew smaller every day.
My world slowly grew larger.
Physical therapy helped my leg.
I learned to sleep more than three hours at a time.
I replaced my phone.
I stopped flinching every time it vibrated.
But I still could not stand near loose dirt.
One afternoon, I walked past landscaping outside Dr. Barnes’s office and smelled wet soil.
My body froze.
I could hear Patricia laughing.
I could feel insects moving over my neck.
My therapist had taught me what to do.
Name five things you can see.
Blue car.
Glass door.
Red sign.
White cloud.
Yellow flowers.
Four things you can touch.
My coat.
My ring.
The wall.
My daughter moving beneath my hand.
That last one brought me back.
I entered the clinic.
Dr. Barnes smiled after the examination.
“Thirty-six weeks.”
I laughed.
Every week had once seemed impossible.
Now my daughter was almost ready.
But good news never arrived alone.
The prosecutor called Hannah during my appointment.
Daniel had decided to cooperate.
Not confess.
Cooperate.
He offered evidence against Patricia in exchange for reduced charges.
When Hannah told me, anger spread through me.
“After everything, he wants to blame his mother?”
“He wants to survive.”
“He always does.”
Daniel claimed Patricia had controlled him since childhood.
He said she designed the financial plan.
She found Sloan.
She encouraged the burial.
He admitted participating but called himself psychologically dependent on her.
Then he produced something prosecutors had not seen.
A recording of Patricia.
In it, she said my baby represented “the safest route to the trust.”
I stopped breathing.
“What does that mean?”
Hannah’s face was pale.
May you like
“They weren’t only planning to control you.”
“They were planning to control your daughter.”
