Chapter 6 - Laying the Snare
Sunday was a masterclass in strategic preparation. I returned to the house, but I did not return alone. Marcus accompanied me, along with two private security contractors and a locksmith.
Within three hours, every lock on the estate had been changed. The security codes for the gates, the garage, and the alarm system were wiped and reset. We packed Richard’s clothes, his expensive watches, his golf clubs, and every personal item he owned into cardboard boxes, leaving them stacked neatly in the garage. We did the same for Evelyn, whose guest suite was stripped of its silk sheets and replaced with the barren reality of her impending eviction.
The physical removal of his presence was deeply cathartic. The house suddenly felt lighter, the air easier to breathe.
Marcus sat at the dining room table, laying out the legal documents in precise, geometric alignment. The divorce petition. The termination of employment. The civil fraud suit naming Richard, Evelyn, and Pamela Croft as co-conspirators. The restraining order preventing Richard from coming within five hundred feet of my company’s headquarters or my son.
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I made a pot of coffee. Mateo sat at the kitchen island, happily chatting with the security guards about dinosaurs. He was making up for three years of lost time, his vocabulary expansive and rich. Dr. Reyes had been right. He hadn't been incapable; he had been observing a household filled with underlying tension and deceit, waiting for it to be safe. By removing Richard’s shadow, I had given my son the sunlight he needed to grow.
Now, all we had to do was wait for Monday.
