Chapter 7 - Face to Face with the Ghost
The silence that followed was absolute.
"What did you just say?" Tyler asked, a sudden edge of panic threading through his voice.
"I said," James replied, pressing a button on his intercom, "Sarah prefers to deliver her own news."
I stood up, smoothed the lapels of my dark navy blazer, and pushed open the frosted glass door.
Madison was sitting on the left, wearing an expensive black cashmere sweater that I had bought her for Christmas two years ago. Tyler was on the right, his designer briefcase open on the walnut table. When the door swung wide and I stepped across the threshold, Tyler’s jaw dropped so hard his pen slipped from his fingers and rolled off the table, bouncing uselessly on the carpet.
Madison didn't speak. She didn't scream. The blood drained from her face until she turned the color of damp parchment. She shoved her chair back with such violence that it slammed against the mahogany credenza, her hands flying to her mouth.
"Hello, Madison," I said, walking slowly to the head of the table. "Tyler. Did you manage to get that engine trouble sorted out?"
"You..." Tyler stammered, his eyes bulging as he gripped the edge of the desk. "You're... you were... you were sixty miles out in the Western Desert without water!"
"Seventy-four miles, actually," I replied, standing directly in front of him. I leaned forward, resting both hands on the table so he could see the raw scabs on my palms and the sun-cracked skin on my wrists. "You took my phone, Tyler. You took my passport. But you forgot that people live in that desert. Honorable people. Men who wouldn't dream of leaving an old woman to rot in the sun for an inheritance."
"Mom..." Madison choked out, taking a trembling step toward me, her eyes wild with terror. "Mom, oh God, you're alive! We... we came back to look for you! Tyler panicked! He made a mistake, but we were going to hire private planes, we were—"
"Stop lying, Madison," I said, my voice dropping to a low, steady pitch that seemed to shake the very walls of the room. "I heard you laugh. I stood in the dirt and watched you turn your head away while your husband told me you needed Robert's money now. You looked me in the eye and said, 'Good luck finding your way back.'"
"Mom, please!" Madison dropped to her knees on the office floor, bursting into violent, racking sobs, reaching out to grab the hem of my trousers. "He made me do it! Tyler told me we were going to lose our apartment! He told me the loan sharks were going to break his legs! He promised me we'd just leave you for a few hours to scare you into signing the papers! I didn't want you to die, Mom! I swear to God I didn't want you to die!"
May you like
Tyler’s face twisted into an ugly, snarling mask. "Shut up, Madison! Don't say another word!" He turned on me, his hands curling into fists. "You can't prove anything, Sarah! We had a disagreement on a back road, you got out of the car, and we lost you in a sandstorm! It’s your word against ours! You don't have a shred of evidence!"
"Actually," James Morrison said, swiveling his laptop toward Tyler, "she has something much better than her word."
