My father leaned toward the screen, his swollen fingers hovering just above the image, not quite touching it, as if it might burn him.
“That was taken today,” he said quietly. “This afternoon. Big Mike came to the station a few hours after you found us. He took us to a furnished room a few blocks away, made us wash up, gave us those clothes, put food on a table, and told us to smile.” He swallowed hard. “He kept Keaton right beside the camera the whole time. Said if any of us looked frightened, he’d take him away again — for good this time.”
My mother pulled Keaton tighter against her chest, though he was sitting right beside her, safe, and did not need to be held that way. It was for her own sake as much as his.
“After the picture,” she whispered, “Big Mike collected the clothes back and drove us to the station and left us there. Like nothing happened.”
I understood, then, exactly what I was looking at. Donald hadn’t sent me an old photograph to keep up a five-year-old lie. He had sent me a photograph taken *after* I had already found my family — which meant he still believed I didn’t know what I now knew. He was still performing for me, still managing me, the way he had managed me for half a decade.
And that meant he did not yet know I had already pulled my parents and my son out of his reach.
That was the only advantage I had, and I intended to use every second of it.
I called Priya back and told her what my father had said. She went quiet for a moment, then spoke carefully. “If he’s still sending staged photos, he thinks he’s still in control. Don’t correct that impression. Let him believe it a little longer — long enough for me to get subpoenas moving on those transfer records and get law enforcement looped in properly, not just a single officer Big Mike can intimidate. We go through the district attorney’s office directly, with your documentation in hand. That’s how we make sure nothing gets buried.”
I turned off every light in the hotel room and made my parents move away from the window. I told them not to open the door for anyone, not to say Donald’s name or Big Mike’s name where it could carry down the hallway, and to keep Keaton close.
Keaton curled into my side on the bed, his small body still too light against mine, and for the first time in five years I let myself simply hold my son without a phone screen between us. He fell asleep with his hand fisted in the fabric of my shirt, as if he were afraid that if he let go, I would disappear the way everything good in his life had disappeared before.
I stayed awake and typed a reply to Donald, my thumb hovering over the screen for a long moment before I let it fall.
*Everything looks wonderful. I’m so relieved. I’m taking another shift tonight to save a little extra — please send me the address of the new house so I can mail Keaton a surprise for when I finally come home.*
My mother, watching over my shoulder, grabbed my wrist. “Alisha, don’t. If he realizes—”
“He won’t,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely certain. “He thinks I’m still three states away, still grateful, still obedient. He has no reason to doubt a wife asking for her own family’s address.”
I pressed send.
—
For five years, I sent my husband thirty-five thousand dollars every single month.
