“Wake the federal judge,” Michael said.
“Tell her the Voss family tried to steal my daughter’s trust property.”
The woman on the other end did not sound surprised.
“She’s already awake,” she replied.
“And you have another problem.
Tyler Voss filed a police complaint twenty minutes ago.
He says Emily assaulted his mother, stole private documents, and fled the hotel in a disturbed state.”
Emily’s face lost what little color remained.
“He told me nobody would hear my side,” she whispered.
Michael ended the call and looked toward the blinking lights outside my curtains.
Two police cruisers had stopped behind his vehicles.
A silver sedan pulled in behind them.
Tyler climbed out before the officers did.
He was still wearing his wedding tuxedo.
His bow tie hung loose, but his hair had been carefully combed.
He pointed at my house as if guiding the police toward a dangerous fugitive.
Vanessa emerged from the passenger side in a cream coat.
A strip of white gauze had been taped theatrically across her forehead.
There had not been a mark on her when Emily escaped.
Michael watched them through the window.
“He came to control the first impression,” he said.
One of his investigators placed a small black case on my dining table.
“The recorder is intact.”
“Make three forensic copies.
Keep the original offline.”
The knock on my door was hard enough to rattle the framed photographs in the hallway.
“Police.
Open the door.”
Emily tightened the blue blanket around herself.
Michael crouched beside her.
The ruthless man everyone feared became, for one quiet second, only a father.
“You are not going back to that hotel,” he said.
“You are not signing anything.
You will answer only what you choose to answer, and you will not be alone again.”
She nodded.
Then he stood and opened the door.
Two uniformed officers waited on the porch.
Tyler stood behind them with one hand protectively around Vanessa’s shoulders.
She leaned into him, performing weakness for an audience.
“There she is,” Tyler said.
“Please be careful.
She’s unstable.”
The senior officer looked past Michael and saw Emily on the floor in a torn wedding dress, her face swollen and her lip bleeding.
His posture changed.
Tyler noticed.
“She did that to herself while attacking my mother,” he said quickly.
“We tried to stop her from driving away drunk.”
Emily stared at him.
I had never seen betrayal become understanding so quickly.
Until that moment, some part of her had still been searching the man at the door for the husband she thought she had married.
There was no husband there.
Only a man trying to survive his own plan.
Vanessa raised a trembling hand to her bandage.
“I begged her to calm down.
She became violent when Tyler mentioned a prenuptial agreement.”
