They Threw Us in the Snow. I Owned Everything. novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Camera on the Gable

Laurel and Joy spend the night in Tobias's gatehouse. At dawn Colin, Brandy and a deputy come to take Joy, Tobias mentions the camera, and Laurel's cards stop working while Colin's lawyer sets a custody hearing.

The gatehouse had one bedroom, a woodstove and a kitchen table with a map pinned under the glass.

Tobias put Joy in his own bed with two blankets and a cup of warm water she didn't drink.

She fell asleep with the spare inhaler still in her hand.

I stood in his kitchen in my green dress with snow melting out of my hair.

He set a mug of tea in front of me and didn't ask me anything.

"You can have the couch," he said. "I'll take the floor."

"Why did you answer?" I asked.

He looked at the stove before he looked at me.

"Your grandmother asked me to pick up if that number ever rang," he said. "I told her I would."

"Did she say why?"

"No."

I turned my phone over on the table so the email faced down.

"There's something I got today," I said. "I don't know how to say it yet."

"Then say it to your lawyer first," Tobias said. "Not to me. Not to anyone in that house."

He had a way of saying a thing once and leaving it there.

I slept in my coat on his couch, and I woke twice to check Joy's breathing.

Both times he was already standing in the bedroom doorway.

At seven in the morning an SUV came down the drive too fast.

Colin got out of the driver's side in yesterday's sweater.

Brandy climbed out of the passenger seat with her left hand tucked into her coat pocket.

A county deputy in a tan parka got out of a cruiser behind them and shut his door gently.

Tobias opened the gatehouse door and stood on the porch with his arms folded.

I stood behind him with Joy on my hip, still in her puffer.

"I'm here to collect my daughter," Colin said to the deputy. "She was taken from my mother's house in the middle of the night."

"We walked out at 9:14," I said. "He shut the door behind us."

"She was upset," Colin said. "She ran off, and she took a sick child into the snow."

The deputy looked at Joy.

Joy put her face in my neck.

"Ma'am, I have a complaint that you removed a minor without the father's consent," he said. "I need to see that she's safe."

"She's safe," Tobias said. "She's had breakfast and her medication, and she was sleeping until about ten minutes ago."

Colin finally looked at him.

"You're not family," Colin said. "You haven't been family since you stole from Mother."

"Colin, the deputy's here," Brandy said quietly.

She had taken her hand out of her pocket to push her hair back.

The garnet caught the porch light.

I looked at it, and Brandy saw me look, and she put the hand back.

"There's a camera on this gable," Tobias said to the deputy. "It points at the front door of that house, and it's been recording since I put it up. Everything from last night is on a drive inside."

Colin's face changed.

He didn't go pale. His face just went flat.

"That's an invasion of privacy," he said.

"It's a doorbell on my own wall, pointed at my own driveway," Tobias said. "The front door is just in the way."

The deputy rubbed his jaw.

"Mr. Thayer, I can't take a child out of a safe home on a complaint, not on Christmas morning, not without an order," he said. "If you want to change where she sleeps, that's the family court."

"Then I'll get an order," Colin said.

"Get one," I said.

He stepped close enough that Brandy put a hand on his sleeve.

"You won't have a thing by Friday," he said in a low voice. "No house, no card, nothing. Mother's seen to it."

"I never asked for your house," I said.

"That's why she calls you the bookkeeper."

He got back into the SUV and slammed the door.

Brandy waited one second longer than she needed to.

She opened her mouth to say something to me.

Then she shut it, got in, and they drove back up the drive.

The deputy touched his hat and left.

Joy lifted her head.

"Are we still in trouble?" she asked.

"No, baby," I said. "We're having pancakes."

Tobias's mouth moved, not quite a smile, and he took the carton of eggs out of the refrigerator.

My phone buzzed against the table.

It was a text from an unknown number, a lawyer's office, signed with the name of Colin's attorney.

Emergency custody hearing set for December 27, 9 a.m., Litchfield Family Court. Please bring the child.

I opened my banking app to see what I had.

The screen turned gray, and then it read: Account access restricted. Please contact the primary holder.

I tried my card on the grocery app.

Declined.

I had two hundred and twelve dollars in my wallet, a seven-year-old, a custody hearing in two days, and a lawyer's email telling me I owned two hundred million dollars.

I couldn't touch a cent of it until the lawyer's office opened tomorrow morning.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend