Chapter 5 - THE DRIVEWAY
I stopped the car halfway along the driveway.
Chelsea walked toward me before I could reverse. Her face was twisted by months of lies, jealousy, and the thrill of finally confronting the woman Jason had taught her to hate. She struck the hood once with the bat.
The impact shook the entire car.
“Chelsea!” I shouted through the closed window.
She swung again, this time into the windshield.
“He’s mine, you homewrecker!”
Glass fractured across my vision. I threw both arms over my stomach as fine pieces scattered across the dashboard and seats. Jason stood several feet away, frozen in his navy suit. He did not rush toward me. He did not call Chelsea’s name. He watched with the tense concentration of a man waiting to see whether a plan remained under control.
Chelsea struck the side window, then moved toward the rear door. Through the broken glass, I saw her notice the baby seat. For a fraction of a second, I thought the sight of it might stop her.
Instead, she tore open the door.
The bat came down across the seat’s plastic frame. She ripped at the padding and sliced through the straps with a small blade pulled from her bag. The seat had never carried my daughter, but watching it collapse felt like witnessing violence against a future I had spent years praying for.
Inside me, the baby kicked hard.
I reached into the center console and pressed Officer Brooks’s emergency transmitter.
Chelsea climbed partly onto the hood and lifted the bat again. I forced the damaged driver’s door open, hands shaking as I tried to move without stepping onto the glass.
“You knew she would come,” I said to Jason.
His face tightened.
“That isn’t what happened.”
“You opened the gate.”
Before he could answer, patrol vehicles turned into the driveway. Officers moved quickly from behind Jason, voices firm but controlled. Officer Brooks reached Chelsea first, stepped between her and the open car door, and forced the bat downward without touching me.
“Drop it. Now.”
Chelsea released the handle.
Brooks turned toward me. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know.”
She helped me away from the car while another officer called for medical assistance. I stood with one hand around my stomach and the other holding the ultrasound photograph I had grabbed from the passenger seat. My name was confirmed over dispatch.
Brooks looked at me sharply.
Then she looked toward another officer, her expression changing from routine concern to alarm.
“You’re Commissioner Potter’s daughter?”
Jason’s face drained of color.
Chelsea stared at him.
He had apparently told her the connection was exaggerated—something I used socially, not something real enough to change the seriousness with which the attack would be examined.
I looked at Jason across the shattered car.
“Now everyone knows what you tried to hide.”
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At that moment, I was not talking only about Chelsea.
I was talking about the fact that my husband had stood in his own driveway and watched another woman terrorize his pregnant wife because he believed he could decide how far the damage went.
