Chapter 6 - Darlene Had Sold the SecretGavin agreed to speak with Darlene one more time.
Detective Shaw remained present.
So did Darlene’s attorney.
Gavin sat opposite the woman who had managed his home for eleven years.
“I saw the message.”
Darlene’s face fell.
“Twenty thousand.”
She nodded.
“You demanded it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Darlene stared at her hands.
“My sister was about to lose her house.”
Gavin almost laughed.
“So Audrey’s affair became your mortgage solution.”
Darlene flinched.
“Yes.”
At least she did not pretend.
“What happened after?”
“She paid.”
“And you stayed.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Money.”
“Only?”
Darlene shook her head.
“At first I thought knowing the secret made me powerful.”
Gavin stared.
“And later?”
“I realized Audrey had evidence against me.”
“The blackmail.”
“Yes.”
“So you trapped her.”
“She trapped me back.”
Gavin leaned forward.
“No.”
Darlene looked up.
“You both trapped yourselves.”
Silence.
“Did Audrey make leaving expensive?”
“Yes.”
“Could you still leave?”
Darlene’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Good.
Gavin needed that answer.
“Why Mia?”
Darlene’s face crumpled.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
She cried.
“She looks like Audrey.”
Gavin felt sick.
“She is six.”
“I know.”
“Try again.”
Darlene wiped her face.
“Audrey had taken the phone. She told me she was done paying. She told me I was replaceable. She said Baxter would be missed longer than I would.”
Gavin remembered her words in the kitchen.
She treats me worse than the dog.
“And you saw the bowl.”
“Yes.”
“What happened in your head?”
Darlene closed her eyes.
“I wanted Audrey to feel humiliated.”
“Through her daughter.”
“Yes.”
Gavin felt rage rise.
Darlene continued quickly.
“I knew Mia would tell her.”
“You used a six-year-old as a message.”
“Yes.”
“Did you intend for Mia to swallow?”
“No.”
Gavin slammed his palm once on the table.
Darlene jumped.
“Stop.”
She stared.
“Stop telling me what you didn’t intend.”
Silence.
“Tell me what you intended.”
Darlene cried.
“I intended to frighten her.”
Gavin’s jaw tightened.
“And?”
“To humiliate her.”
“And?”
“To make Audrey hurt.”
There.
No excuse left.
“Thank you.”
Darlene looked confused.
“For what?”
“For finally saying it accurately.”
She wiped her face.
“I hate myself.”
“That’s not useful to Mia.”
Darlene nodded.
Gavin continued:
“Did you ever resent Mia before?”
Darlene froze.
That hesitation answered.
“How long?”
“Sometimes.”
“Why?”
“She had everything.”
Gavin stared.
“She was a child.”
“I know.”
“She had a mother lying to her father. A biological father who didn’t know. A house manager blackmailing her mother.”
Darlene looked down.
“She did not have everything.”
“No.”
Gavin’s voice softened only because the truth did not require shouting.
“You saw a mansion and parents and money. You decided that meant a six-year-old couldn’t be vulnerable.”
Darlene cried.
“Yes.”
“Did you ever hurt her before?”
“No.”
“Threaten?”
“No.”
“Say something cruel?”
Darlene hesitated.
“Sometimes I was short with her.”
“Anything worse?”
“No.”
Detective Shaw slid a paper toward Gavin.
A recovered recording.
Gavin looked.
Darlene saw the file name.
Her face changed.
“What is that?”
Shaw pressed play.
Darlene’s voice.
Three weeks earlier.
“Sometimes I wish Mia had never been born.”
Gavin went completely still.
Audrey answered:
“Don’t you dare.”
Darlene laughed.
“She is why you got everything.”
Audrey:
“She is six.”
Darlene:
“You got Gavin. Reid. The house. The money. And I got your secret.”
Audrey:
“Mia did nothing.”
Darlene:
“No. She just gets to live inside the lie.”
The recording ended.
Gavin looked at Darlene.
“You lied.”
She cried.
“I said I never hurt her before.”
“I asked if you resented her.”
“I said sometimes.”
“You wished she had never been born.”
“I was angry.”
“So?”
Darlene looked down.
Gavin realized something important.
The kitchen had not appeared from nowhere.
The violence was new.
The resentment was not.
“Did you know your anger was getting worse?”
Darlene did not answer.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Months ago.”
“Did you think about quitting?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Darlene whispered:
“I kept thinking I could handle it.”
Gavin leaned back.
There.
The sentence that frightened him most.
Not I lost control.
I knew there was a problem and trusted myself anyway.
“Did anyone know?”
“My sister.”
“What did she say?”
“Leave.”
“And?”
“I stayed.”
Gavin nodded.
He stood.
Darlene looked up.
“Gavin.”
“What?”
“Audrey told Mia something last week.”
His stomach tightened.
“What?”
“She told her that if you ever learned the truth, you might stop being her father.”
He closed his eyes.
“I know.”
Darlene started crying again.
“I heard Mia ask if she had done something wrong.”
Gavin turned back.
“And you still used her days later.”
Darlene had no answer.
He left.
Outside, Detective Shaw joined him.
“Where are you going?”
“To my daughter.”
“Good.”
Then Shaw added:
“There’s another thing.”
Gavin almost laughed from exhaustion.
“What?”
“Gate records.”
His chest tightened.
“Reid?”
“Twenty-three visits in eighteen months.”
Gavin stared.
Audrey had described one kiss.
One moment of weakness.
Twenty-three visits sounded like a relationship.
Maybe not physical.
May you like
But alive.
And the marriage he thought had been betrayed six years ago had never really stopped carrying the betrayal.
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