Chapter 4 - Unraveling the Web of Lies
I dropped to my knees beside him, my hands shaking so violently I could barely tear the thick duct tape off his mouth.
“Harper...?” David croaked, his voice nothing more than a dry rasp of sandpaper. “Oh god... Harper...”
“Hold on, hold on, I’ve got you,” I whispered frantically, using my house keys to saw through the heavy plastic zip-ties binding his swollen wrists. Once his hands were free, he collapsed forward into my arms, weeping silently as his emaciated body shook with exhaustion.
“Water... please...” he gasped.
I ran into the en-suite bathroom, grabbed a plastic cup from the counter, filled it with tap water, and rushed back out. He drank it greedily, choking slightly before begging for more. After three full cups, he finally caught his breath and looked up at me with haunted eyes.
“Jean...” David choked out, gripping my forearm with surprising strength. “Where is Jean? Is she here?”
“She’s gone, David,” I said grimly, helping him lean back against the wall. “She dumped Bailey at my house this morning and caught a flight to Europe with Liam.”
David closed his eyes, letting out a hollow, bitter laugh that turned into a coughing fit. “Europe... of course she did. She emptied our joint business accounts yesterday morning. Three hundred thousand dollars. She transferred everything to an offshore account in the Caymans.”
“What happened to you?” I asked, shining my flashlight around the horrific prison she had made of his own bedroom. “Why did she lock you in here?”
David swallowed hard, the nightmare spilling out of him in broken fragments. “Three weeks ago, I caught her embezzling funds from my architectural firm to pay off Liam’s gambling debts. When I told her I was filing for divorce and reporting her to the board, she snapped. She drugged my evening coffee with sedatives. When I woke up, I was tied to this radiator.”
“And Bailey?” My voice tightened with fury.
“Bailey walked in on us arguing the night before she locked me up,” David whispered, tears spilling over his hollow cheeks. “She saw Jean holding the syringe. Jean told her that if she ever told a single soul—if she ever asked about me, or mentioned that I was missing—she would frame Bailey for poisoning me, send her to a maximum-security juvenile detention center, and make sure I was killed in my sleep. My little girl has been living in terror for three weeks, keeping my secret because she thought it would save my life.”
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My blood boiled so hot I thought my veins would burst. Jean hadn't just abandoned a stepchild. She had kidnapped her own husband, starved him nearly to death, embezzled his life savings, and weaponized a ten-year-old child’s love and fear to cover her tracks while she flew off to live a life of luxury in Europe.
“She’s not getting away with this,” I said, standing up and pulling David to his feet. “We’re calling the police right now.”
