Chapter 6 - WHAT I HID FROM TRENT
I woke properly shortly after midnight.
Harry was sitting beside my bed.
Lydia slept curled against him beneath a hospital blanket.
When I moved, Harry opened his eyes immediately.
“Cass?”
I tried to sit.
Pain stopped me.
“Lydia?”
“She’s okay.”
“Trent?”
Harry’s face changed.
“Gone.”
Then he told me about Brock.
The shove.
The lie.
The cruiser footage.
I closed my eyes.
Harry leaned closer.
“You knew Brock was helping him.”
“Yes.”
The word came out almost silently.
Harry looked devastated.
“How long?”
“Months.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was trying to leave correctly.”
He stared at me.
“There is no correct way to leave someone who does this.”
“There is when he controls the money, knows deputies, and threatens custody.”
That silenced him.
I asked for my purse.
It had come with the ambulance.
Inside the lining was a tiny stitched pocket.
Harry had never noticed it.
Neither had Trent.
I pulled out a small brass key.
“What’s that?”
“Safe-deposit box.”
Harry stared at me.
“What’s in it?”
“Everything.”
For four months, I had been building an exit file.
Copies of financial records.
Photographs.
Audio.
Names.
Dates.
Evidence of Trent moving money from our joint accounts into a construction company I did not recognize.
And screenshots of messages between him and Brock.
Harry looked stunned.
“You had their messages?”
“Some.”
“How?”
“Trent left his tablet connected to his phone.”
One conversation had frightened me more than all the others.
Trent had written:
If Cass starts talking, I need you to handle it like last time.
Brock replied:
Keep her calm. I’ll handle the report.
I had never known what “last time” meant.
Until Santos came into my hospital room at 1:07 a.m.
She closed the door.
Then placed a photograph on the table.
Another woman.
Blonde.
Early thirties.
I recognized her.
She had worked in Trent’s office.
Then suddenly quit two years earlier.
Santos watched my face.
“You know her?”
“Rachel Dunn.”
“Did your husband ever mention why she left?”
I shook my head.
Santos pulled out another document.
“Because she filed a complaint against him.”
Harry stood.
“What kind of complaint?”
Santos looked at me.
“Domestic assault.”
I stared at her.
“That’s impossible. She wasn’t his—”
Then I stopped.
Santos did not need to finish.
May you like
Rachel had not simply worked for my husband.
And Brock Timmons had been the deputy assigned to her complaint.
