He Let Me Crash on Christmas Eve, So I Took Our Daughter novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: You Came

Nate's POV

"Yes," I said.

It cost me more than anything I had ever said.

The officer nodded once and wrote it down.

Susannah didn't look at me.

She was looking at the frozen picture on the laptop, at a woman in a long coat with her hand over her mouth.

"She was on my chest," I said. "She'd been in the house a minute. I thought somebody had hurt her."

"Somebody did," the officer said. "Your wife."

I put my fists on my knees so nobody would see them.

"What happens now?" Susannah asked.

"I take this to the district attorney tomorrow. A judge signs a warrant. Friday, if I'm lucky."

"And if her father's lawyer gets there first?"

"Then he buries it for a month." The officer closed the laptop. "So nobody warns her. Not her father, not her mother, not you, Mr. Ardrey. Especially not you."

"I haven't answered her since the eighth."

"That's the problem. A man who goes silent after six years is a man who knows something."

He was right.

I felt the whole trap close around me at once.

In the hallway outside the station, Susannah stopped at the water fountain and held on to it with both hands.

I stood two feet away and did not touch her.

"I'll handle this part alone," I said. "You've done enough. Go back to Joy."

She turned around slowly.

"Handle it."

"I mean I'll sit next to her and keep her calm until he comes. You shouldn't have to look at her."

"She hit my car, Nate. She looked at me for forty seconds and got back in her SUV."

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