MALLORY HOSPITALIZED — URGENT.
The younger officer stopped writing.
The older officer looked from the email to the complaint.
That was when Mallory’s phone rang.
Dad.
The name lit up the screen like a dare.
Ethan looked at the officers.
Mallory looked at the phone.
Then she answered on speaker.
Her father did not wait.
“You think one dollar was funny?” he snarled.
Mallory watched both officers hear his voice.
“Wait until you see what I told them you did,” her father said.
The porch went still.
Even the red and blue light seemed to pause between flashes.
Mallory did not speak.
Her father took her silence for fear.
He always had.
“You’ve been hiding money from us for years,” he said. “After everything we did for you, you decide your mother can suffer?”
The older officer’s eyes lifted from the complaint.
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
Mallory’s hand closed around the phone until her knuckles went white.
