Chapter Twenty-Three
A sharp wolf whistle drew my eyes to the street, and I spun in the direction of the sound. Instead of giving a misogynistic creep a piece of my feminist mind, I found Alicia smiling wildly from her car window, and I grinned.
She pulled up to the curb, and I turned back to meet her.
“What are you doing?” I called over the sounds of afternoon traffic.
Alicia pointed behind her. “Bill is following in his truck. You’re borrowing it until we get your ride situation sorted. He’ll ride to school and practice with CJ until then.”
Emotion gripped my chest as I searched the busy street for him. “No,” I protested. “He can’t do that.”
The familiar old pickup pulled into the space behind her. A moment later, her middle son hopped out. Bill approached me in long, confident strides. “Hey, Auntie Soph.”
I covered my mouth and batted back tears. I met him halfway and pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. “Thank you.”
His deep teenage chuckle rumbled against me. “It’s no big deal.”
He was so incredibly wrong.
My tears fell, and I held him longer. Soon, his lanky arms returned the embrace.
It felt so unfathomably good to be loved.
That Alicia’s family would prioritize my needs was both humbling and immensely fulfilling.
In keeping with my endless self-epiphanies these days, I understood this wasn’t new.
I’d just never let my walls down like this before.
I’d carried everything on my shoulders when I didn’t need to.
The same walls I thought protected me from pain had kept out the good things too.
I released Bill on a chuckle and wiped my tears. “Sorry.”
His expression was surprisingly hard. “Uncle Robert is an asshole,” he whispered.
Alicia slung an arm over his shoulder and tipped him closer. “Agreed,” she said. “Uncle Robert is an absolute asshole.”
Bill gave me his keys, looking as if he might just run home.
Alicia passed him her fob. “Why don’t you take my car home? Sophie can give me a ride.”
He looked at me, then at his mom’s new Bronco, and lit up like those Friday night lights he loved so much. “Sweet!”
No one had to ask him twice.
He waved over his shoulder as he hurried away.
Alicia smiled at me. “He’s a good kid.”
“He’s the best,” I croaked. “Just like his mom.”
We climbed into Bill’s pickup, and I urged the engine to life.
Alicia and I drove to the impound lot to collect my personal items from the SUV. According to the paperwork provided by the tow truck driver, and the added fees charged by the lot, I couldn’t afford to liberate my car anytime this side of the next millennium.
“Don’t worry about it,” Alicia said, consoling me as we returned to Bill’s truck. “Even if you had the money, you probably couldn’t spring the BMW anyway. It’s still in Robert’s name.”
I buckled up with a groan. “Every time I forget he’s out there trying to ruin my life, bam! He snatches something else away.”
“At least this should be the end of it,” she said. “The only other thing you have is your mom’s house, and she left it to you fair and square.”
I hoped she was right, but few things were fair when Robert was involved. The way our divorce was going, I worried he might force me to sell the house to pay off our alleged joint debts.
“I need to prove he’s lying about the money,” I said. That was the real problem. “How can I do that?”
“Any word from the forensic accountant?” she asked.
“No.” I shook my head. “They won’t be in touch for ninety days, unless they find something. Otherwise, I’ll get a quarterly report updating me on what they’ve done so far.”
“Well then, it’s only a matter of time. Robert’s smart, but he’s arrogant, and that leads to mistakes.
He knows you’re smart, too, and savvy, which is why he’s got you running in circles.
He knows that if he doesn’t keep you panicked and distracted, you’ll figure out what he’s doing with the money. ”
I barked a humorless laugh. “The view from where you’re standing must be a lot different than mine, because it feels like he just wants revenge. I think he’s trying to prove he still can control me, even though I’m no longer living under his thumb.”
I felt her gaze on my cheek but kept my eyes on the road.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said softly. “I hate what he’s done to you, but I am so fiercely proud of what you’re doing every day for yourself.”
I glanced in her direction.
We rode in silence for several blocks.
I wanted to tell her about my plans to confess to Lucas. He deserved to know I was the Invisible Baker. But letting go of old trauma was hard, and when I opened my mouth, I couldn’t find the words.
“Something’s broken in Robert,” Alicia said. “He can’t make real connections with anyone. He seems to think people are either out to get something from him, or they exist so he can get something from them.”
My heart ached at her words. She saw Robert clearly, something I should’ve let myself do much sooner.
I knew now that no amount of my unconditional love or servitude would’ve earned me his love, affection, or even incrementally better treatment.
He saw me as a tool to use for his benefit.
Camilla was that and more. She kept me tied to him while also promoting the image of family man to burnish his professional image.
A double win. But we were both just cogs in the Serve Robert machine.
I pulled into Alicia’s driveway. “There has to be a way to take him down.”
She nodded and opened the passenger door. “If you think of it, let me know. Oh, hey, I almost forgot!” She turned wide eyes to me. “How’d you get the pastries to the restaurant this morning?”
We’d brainstormed possible solutions last night but repeatedly found a flaw in our ideas. I was at a loss until I came up with a plan over coffee with my neighbor.
My lips quirked into a grin. “Ilona.”
Alicia cackled. “Bless that woman. I need details.”
“She took the pastries in an Uber to that coffee shop overlooking the river. Then she took a Lyft to the park at the end of the block across from the restaurant and walked the rest of the way to cover her tracks. After she made the delivery, she stayed downtown until eleven, shopping, then met a friend for lunch who gave her a ride home.”
“That’s so genius,” Alicia said.
“She said she felt like a secret agent, but I hate that it took up her entire morning. She can’t do that every day.”
Alicia considered that for a bit. “So what’s the plan? Will you have to stop taking orders for a while?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Or I could come clean.” I held my breath the moment the words were out. What would Alicia think after helping me keep the secret for so long? Would it feel like betrayal? Would she think I was overreacting or getting ahead of myself?
“Let me know,” she said. “Whatever you decide will be the right thing to do, and I’ve got your back regardless.”
She stepped onto the driveway and turned to wave goodbye.
My heart had officially reached capacity. If my feelings on every topic got any bigger, I was sure it would bust. “Tell Bill I owe him big time for the truck,” I called. “I’ll figure out a new ride as soon as I can.”
A burning hatred for Robert’s financial lies led me to drive past my old house on the way home. Everything looked the same from the outside, but nothing was the same beyond the front door.
I parked the pickup on the corner and stared at the property. Hard to believe I’d lived there longer than I’d lived anywhere else. I’d left Mom’s house at eighteen but spent twenty years in the giant mausoleum across the street from me now, the place where my soul had slowly died.
A truck with a local landscaping company logo drove past, and the driver lifted a hand in my direction.
It took a moment for me to realize he probably thought I was another contractor. Bill’s truck didn’t look like anything a resident would drive.
The idea hit with a bolt, and I cut the engine.
I climbed out and scurried to the front door. Robert was unlikely to be home in the middle of the afternoon, which meant I had time to look for evidence of his lies. If he was home, I’d use the opportunity to give him a piece of my mind.
No one answered when I rang the bell, so I decided to let myself in. My key no longer fit into the lock.
I gasped. “Asshole!”
I marched around the side of the house.
The utility door near the back patio swung easily inward. “Sucker.”
I’d told Robert a thousand times that the lock wasn’t properly aligned, and nine times out of ten it didn’t latch. I never thought his refusal to listen would benefit me one day.
Lazy men for the win, I thought, slipping inside and pulling the door closed tightly behind me, and thanking my lucky stars Robert was too cheap to pay for a security system.
My heart pounded as I peeked out the front windows, on the lookout for lookie-loos and nosy Nellies.
Then I turned to examine my former home.
Why was it so unnecessarily big? It’d been years since I’d had a psychology class, but I was sure Sigmund Freud would have a field day with that question.
I moved through our home, astonished at how little it felt like mine, despite the fact I’d only been gone a few months.
I didn’t miss it. I was lucky to be free.
Though Alicia would say that was all my doing.
My perseverance. My courage. With a little more of that, maybe I’d finally shake Robert’s continued grasp on me.
His office door stood open at the end of the first-floor hallway, and I crept inside.
I felt like a criminal, though the place was legally half mine, and I’d been alone inside the room a thousand times.
Stacks of file folders on his desk contained details related to his clients. A pile of unopened bills filled a tray.
Why pay the utilities when letting the accounts go to collections would further support his ruse?
I pulled a pen from the cup on his desktop and used it to open, then riffle through, his drawers. My prints were probably everywhere in the house, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I shouldn’t be there, and I didn’t want to leave any evidence behind.
I pocketed the pen when I came up empty.
No smoking gun here.
But maybe he anticipated I’d come poking around. That was the only reason to change the locks, wasn’t it?
I moved into the hallway and gave the office one last look to be sure nothing, save the pen in my pocket, was out of place. Then I closed my eyes and waited for a bolt of brilliance to strike.
“Oh!” My eyes opened on a burst of excitement.
I climbed the steps at double speed and raced to the primary suite.
Robert had a hidey-hole in the floorboards where he kept his porn.
Too smart to leave a digital footprint, he still subscribed to magazines like his father before him.
He had them sent to a PO box. Then he brought them home, and he had no idea I knew all about it.
I’d found the loose board years ago while cleaning and had been devastated by what was inside.
I stopped short when I crossed the threshold of my former bedroom.
“Oh my god.” Robert had rearranged the furniture and hung a massive white screen on the wall where my bookshelves once stood.
A projector hung from the ceiling above our bed.
“You turned our bedroom into a theater?” And watched movies from bed? How lazy was he?
I guffawed my way across the room, only to perform a triple take as I passed my walk-in closet.
A belligerent gasp ripped from my throat as I caught sight of the weight bench.
“No fucking way.” I changed my trajectory and slapped my palm against the light switch, then glared as the complete home gym appeared before me. “Unbelievable.”
Robert had made our primary suite into a private man quarters. A bedroom with a theater, gym, bathroom, and porn.
I shut off the light and forced myself away. If I stewed instead of returning to my mission, I’d burn the whole place down.
Across the room, I knelt beside the window and peeled back the corner of our area rug. I tested the floor by knocking until I found the loose board and checked underneath.
I rolled my eyes at the young, airbrushed body on this month’s cover. I said a silent prayer for her health, and the well-being of every woman who bought into this idea of perfection. And I wished for karmic justice on the men who still objectified us.
I removed the magazines and placed them in careful stacks along the wall. For a moment, I feared I’d wasted my time. Then the small white corner of a document came into view. And just like that, hidden beneath Robert’s copies of Hustler, I hit the jackpot.
Elation soared as I sifted through the paperwork, growing infinitely happier by the second. “Holy shit!”
Banking statements in his name revealed multiple six-figure balances.
Stacks of paper bonds, stock dividend records, and a folder full of papers with the name of an LLC I didn’t recognize completed the booty.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one with a business on the side.
Somehow I suspected Robert’s company made far more money than the Invisible Baker.
I spread the documents on the floor and used my phone to take pictures of each.
When I began repacking the secret compartment, the title to a boat slipped free.
I blinked when the owner’s name registered. “How long have I owned a boat?”
A low, familiar rumble rose from beneath me, and I stilled to pinpoint the noise.
The garage door.
Robert was home!