I hope you never read this.
I hope I come home and burn this envelope and laugh at myself.
But if you do read it, then fight for them.
Fight like you fought for me and Fletch after Dad died.
Fight like you always do.
You are the only person I trust.
Your Collie
Dorothy pressed the pages against her chest.
For a moment she let herself grieve again—not just the death, but the secret suffering. The months Colleen had carried triplets and betrayal at the same time. The fact that her daughter had been afraid and had borne that fear mostly alone.
Then Dorothy opened the USB drive materials.
The private investigator’s report was precise and ugly. Dates. Photographs. Locations. Grant entering hotels with Vivian. Grant leaving restaurants and touching the small of her back. Grant kissing her in a parking garage three months before Colleen’s due date. One picture showed them laughing. Grant looked younger in it than he had at the funeral, as though deceit were keeping him well-rested.
The screenshots were worse.
Grant: Once the babies are born and everything settles, we’ll be free.
Vivian: She suspects something.
Grant: She always signs whatever I put in front of her.
Dorothy went still.
Whatever I put in front of her.
She looked at the separate phone bill and saw hundreds of calls and messages to Vivian’s number across two years.
Not a mistake.
Not a lapse.
An entire second life.
By the time Dorothy started the car, she knew exactly where she was going.
Emmett Calloway lived in a brick colonial with a porch swing and a porch light that never turned off because his wife believed darkness invited accidents. He opened the door in slippers and reading glasses, looked at Dorothy’s face, then at the manila envelope in her hand, and stepped aside without asking a single question.
They sat at his kitchen table until nearly two in the morning.
Emmett read every page twice. He plugged in the USB drive. He adjusted his glasses when he reached the text about Colleen signing whatever Grant put in front of her, then removed them and rubbed his eyes.
“He was planning this before the delivery,” he said quietly. “At least part of it.”
Dorothy wrapped both hands around a cup of tea she had not touched. “Can you help me?”
Emmett looked up sharply. “You really need to ask?”
“I need to hear you say it.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Yes. I can help you.”
“Can we stop him from taking the babies?”
“Yes.”