Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
Alicia
“Mom?”
Stella’s confused, scared voice ricochets through me, snapping me out of a fog.
I push off of Noah, arms out to my frightened daughter.
I want nothing more than to swipe this scene—cops towering over Jessica, red and blue lights coloring the walls—from her memory. To block her from seeing.
But by the time I reach her, I’ve accepted reality. There’s no protecting her—not from this.
Behind me, I hear Noah addressing the police. One cop, wearing gloves, picks up the gun.
“Let’s go downstairs.”
With an arm around her shoulder, I guide her down the stairs to the main floor, leaving her father’s girlfriend and the cops behind us. The front door’s wide open, and we exit through it. That’s when I notice Stella’s barefoot, and we stop on the brick stoop.
Three cop cars are lined up in front, and one is parked in my drive.
A couple of curious neighbors gather further down the block. Faces peer from windows across the street.
Gabriel rounds the corner.
“Is it safe?” My question sounds absurd to my ears. The police are here, but I need to hear it from Gabriel.
“All clear,” he confirms. “Looks like she did this on her own.” He glances into the house. “Is she stable?”
I hesitate, my gaze on Stella, but she’s on her phone—texting.
“She’s not well,” I answer Gabe, meaning Jessica, then touch Stella to get her attention. “Who are you texting?”
“Dad.” She says it in her teen voice, the one that implies with intonation that I’m antiquated.
And I suppose it makes sense she would text him. She just saw his girlfriend in handcuffs upstairs and there are cops surrounding our house.
“What did Jessica do? Did she try to hurt you?”
“No—” comes out automatically, and it’s a version of the truth I want, but her question triggers questions in me.
“What do you think she wanted?” I ask Gabe. She hates me, she made that clear, but I saw Noah check the gun—there were no bullets. She didn’t come to kill me.
Her eyes, her words—I don’t think she’s of sound mind. It’s like she snapped—but what did she want? Why break into my office?
“She took some USB drives from my desk. Empty. Why?”
Commotion on the stairs prevents Gabriel from answering.
A police officer leads Jessica down the stairs, handcuffed. I presume he read her her rights and is taking her in for breaking and entering, but based on the solemn faces, I’m not alone in recognizing she’s guilty of far more than breaking into my home.
Black streaks her face—telltale signs of mascara gone astray—in this case, the truest mask removed. Her lips are swollen from crying, her nose red, and the whites of her eyes wild and sharp in a way that warns she’s unhinged.
A car screeches to a stop at the curb.
Richard.
He barely puts the BMW in park before he’s out, scanning the scene—flashing lights, uniformed officers, the neighbors gathering like moths, and then…me, on the stoop with Stella tucked beneath my arm.
“Stella?” he calls, rushing toward us.
She breaks from me, meeting him halfway down the walkway. “Dad,” she breathes into his chest. “Jessica…” Her voice wobbles. “She had a gun.”
He stiffens. A full-body jolt. He looks to me, desperate for either confirmation or denial.
“The police have her.” It’s all I manage.
Richard’s gaze jerks past us. Jessica’s led by two officers, hands cuffed behind her back, hair disheveled, fury and humiliation twisting her face into something unrecognizable.
The moment she sees Richard, her expression fractures.
Splinters.
Shatters.
“Richard,” she cries out, voice crackling like a rusted hinge. “It’s not what they think. It’s not—” She swings her gaze toward me, wild and blistering. “She twisted everything. She—she ruined everything. You know that. You told me—”
“Jessica.” Richard says her name like the edge of a blade. Not angry. Not yet. But bewildered. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t hurt anyone!” she spits, lunging forward, the officers restraining her instantly. “I went to talk to her. I just wanted to talk. She provoked— She—”
“Jessica.” His voice deepens—the voice he used when he confronted Stella about broken rules as a child. Controlled. Quiet. Final. “You had a gun.”
“I was trying to fix things!” Her gaze shoots to me, then to Noah, who stands just inside the doorframe, arms folded, jaw tight, every line of his body protective. “You said you still loved her. If she wasn’t standing in the way—”
Richard’s face drains of color.
I watch the truth land.
Split him down the middle.
Shock.
Confusion.
Disbelief.
It all plays out in his expression in real time.
“I never—Jessica, I never said—” His voice breaks, raw emotion shredding the words. “I never meant for you to—God. What were you thinking?”
“I was doing what you wanted!” she screams. “You said she was selfish. You said she still controlled everything. You said she didn’t deserve—”
“Enough,” he says sharply.
It guts her.
It guts him too.
For a split second, she looks like she might lunge again—not at me this time, but at him. The officers tighten their hold.
Jessica’s voice collapses inward.
Small. Childlike. A different kind of terrifying.
“You chose her,” she whispers, pleading and broken. “You always choose her.”
Her knees fold beneath her. The cops support her weight as she crumples.
Richard presses a hand to his forehead, eyes closing.
“I’ll meet her at the station,” he mutters to the cops, but not harshly—just hollow. Wrecked.
The officers guide Jessica toward the street. She continues to stare at me, lips trembling, eyes full of a hatred so sharp it feels like talons dragging across my skin.
And just as she’s being lowered into the back of the squad car, she says it—soft enough that I can’t hear, but I read her lips: “This isn’t over.”
Something prickles up my spine.
Not fear—
Recognition.
Because she’s right.
She didn’t act alone.
Questions remain.
We still don’t know who helped her. Or who pushed her.
The door of the police car slams shut. Blue and red flash across her face. The car pulls away.
Richard stands frozen in the middle of the pathway, Stella clinging to him, concerned for her father. Slowly, he lifts his head, meeting my gaze with something like defeat.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. To me. To our daughter. To no one and everyone.
I nod once. There are no words for this.
Behind me, Noah steps out onto the stoop, close enough that I feel his presence before he touches me. He rests a hand at the small of my back, grounding me, anchoring me.
I let myself lean into him. Because the truth is no longer hiding in shadows or whispered threats or confused motives.
The truth is lit up across my yard, in the eyes of my daughter, in the shattered expression of my ex-husband, in the squad car carrying Jessica away—
The truth is unmistakable.
Her mask is gone.
Yet I feel heavy. I also did this—with an affair I had years ago. And maybe with a case I accepted last month. Christ, possibly with how I handled my divorce. I’m not responsible for Jessica, but I’m not innocent.