My husband cooked dinner, and right after my son and I ate, we collapsed Pretending to be unconscious, I heard him on the phone saying, “It’s done… soon they will both be gone.”
After he left the room, I whispered to my son, “Don’t move yet…”
What happened next went far beyond anything I could have ever imaginedhis…
I kept my cheek pressed against the cold kitchen tile and forced my breathing to stay slow.
A few feet away, my son Noah lay beside his chair, one arm twisted beneath him. I watched the faint rise and fall of his ribs and counted three breaths before I dared look toward the hallway where Daniel had disappeared.
His voice drifted from the den.
I missed several words, but then I heard him clearly.
“They won’t be a problem after tonight.”
Footsteps came back toward the kitchen.
I shut my eyes.
Daniel stopped beside me. Every muscle in my body wanted to tighten when his fingers closed around my wrist, but I stayed limp as he checked my pulse and lowered my hand carefully back to the floor.
Then he crossed to Noah.
I heard him touch my son’s shoulder.
“This will be easier for everybody,” he said softly.
That almost broke me.
But I didn’t move.
Daniel picked something up from the table and walked away. A moment later, the door to the garage shut.
I opened my eyes.
Noah’s were already open.
I raised one finger to my lips.
“Phones,” he whispered.
Mine was gone. So was his.
Then I noticed my blue dinner plate still sitting on the table with several bites untouched.
I didn’t know what Daniel had put in our food, or whether the plate could prove anything. I only knew I wasn’t leaving it entirely in his control.
I pulled open the freezer drawer, grabbed a clean freezer bag, and scraped some of the untouched food inside. Noah held the drawer steady while I sealed the bag and hid it behind a half-empty package of frozen peas.
Then I put the blue plate back exactly where Daniel had left it.
Almost exactly.
My hands were shaking so badly that I couldn’t tell whether I’d moved it an inch or two.
We still needed help.
Then I remembered the corded phone Daniel had complained about for years.
