Chapter 13 - THE MAN IN THE PARKING LOT
We left the apartment that night.
Not because I wanted to.
Because Daniel insisted.
We stayed at a secure hotel.
Alice thought it was an adventure.
I didn't tell her the truth.
At midnight, I looked through the curtains.
A black SUV sat across the street.
Engine running.
Lights off.
I called Daniel.
He arrived twenty minutes later.
The SUV was gone.
The next morning, he showed me a photograph.
“This is the man.”
It was the same figure from my father's hallway recording.
His name was Marcus Reed.
A former private investigator.
He had been hired by someone.
“Who?”
Daniel shook his head.
“We're working on it.”
Then he showed me a bank transfer.
The payment had come from an account connected to my parents.
But the final recipient was hidden behind another company.
Rebecca traced it.
Then she called me.
“Carolyn.”
“What?”
“I found the company.”
“Who owns it?”
She paused.
“Your former husband.”
I felt the floor disappear beneath me.
My ex-husband had been gone for years.
He had never wanted custody.
He rarely called.
He had always claimed he couldn't afford child support.
Yet suddenly, he had paid someone to monitor Alice.
“Why?”
Rebecca didn't know.
Then Daniel found something.
My ex-husband had recently filed a petition.
He wanted emergency custody.
His argument?
I worked twelve-hour hospital shifts.
He claimed Alice had been abandoned on Christmas night.
He had photographs.
Security footage.
Witness statements.
All of it carefully arranged.
My family had created the situation.
Then they had handed it to him.
I couldn't believe it.
They had engineered the evidence against me.
And now my ex-husband intended to use it.
I looked at Alice.
She was coloring a Christmas tree.
She had no idea.
Daniel said:
“Carolyn, we're going to fight this.”
I nodded.
But that wasn't enough.
Because my ex-husband had one advantage.
He knew me.
May you like
He knew exactly how to make me look guilty.
And he was about to walk into court with the story my family had spent months creating.
