Chapter 4 - THE OFFICE SAFE
Dana spoke so fast I could barely follow her.
She said Julian had a private safe behind a framed photograph in his home office.
She said he kept duplicate loan documents there, copies of my signature, and a small black notebook he never allowed her to touch.
Then she said something that made Detective Ortiz stand up.
"He called me from the parking garage ten minutes ago. He knows Audrey talked to the school. He said he has to clean house."
"Where are you?" Ortiz asked.
Dana hesitated.
"My apartment."
"Do not leave. An officer is coming to you."
"Is Audrey there?"
"I'm here."
Dana's breathing broke.
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry for which part?"
Dad sat beside me.
"You don't have to process all of this today."
"Apparently Julian processed it for me six months ago."
"Audrey."
"Don't."
"You think you should have known," I said.
"I should have."
"How? You were overseas."
"I was still your father."
"You taught me something without meaning to."
"You taught me that strong people don't complain. You never told us when you were scared. Never told us when something hurt. You came home with stitches and said you caught yourself on a fence. You disappeared for months and called it work."
Dad's face changed.
"So when my marriage started hurting," I said, "I did what I learned. I kept functioning."
"That's on me."
"Not all of it."
"Enough of it."
Police had reached our house before Julian.
The safe was open.
But Julian had missed one thing.
Our neighbor across the alley had installed a security camera after a string of garage thefts.
At 6:42 on the morning of my crash, the video showed Julian walking into the garage carrying a red metal toolbox.
Eight minutes later, he walked back into the garage and removed the toolbox.
"That's not proof he touched the brake line," Ortiz warned me.
"I know."
At 9:05, hospital administration moved me to a private room under a restricted visitor list.
At 9:30, an attorney named Evelyn Shaw arrived with a gray suit, a blunt haircut, and the expression of a woman who charged by the minute because she hated wasting them.
Dad had called her.
"I'm a family-law attorney," she said. "Not a criminal attorney. Detective Ortiz handles that side. My job is to make sure your husband cannot use your injuries to take your home, your money, or your child."
"Can we do that while I'm in the hospital?"
"We can do quite a lot from a hospital if the other spouse has been busy forging signatures."
For the first time since the crash, I smiled.
Then Evelyn pulled out one more sheet.
"There's a problem."
"Julian filed something this afternoon before we did."
She turned the page toward me.
A petition for temporary guardianship.
Julian was asking a judge to declare me mentally incompetent because of my head injury.
May you like
And attached to it was a letter from a doctor saying I was confused, unstable, and unable to make decisions.
I had never met the doctor in my life.
