Chapter 3 - Eight Minutes of Betrayal
Through the passenger mirror, I watched Todd's silver Pathfinder slow down and pull onto the shoulder exactly where he had dropped me off. Eight minutes had passed since he sped away. He truly thought eight minutes of freezing terror would break me. In his mind, I was supposed to be huddled by the ditch, sobbing, ready to beg him to take me home and gladly hand over my paycheck, debit card, and banking passwords. But the shoulder was completely empty.
Todd didn't even get out into the cold. Instead, the interior dome light came on, illuminating his impatient, irritated face. Samuel adjusted the audio receiver on his console, and a crisp, amplified signal fed directly through his speakers from the exterior mic. Todd had dialed a number on speakerphone through his vehicle's Bluetooth system, and the driver's window was cracked just an inch. The voices resonated across the icy, dead quiet of the Iowa night with chilling clarity.
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""Mom? She's not here,"" Todd's voice echoed, dripping with pure annoyance rather than panic. There wasn't a trace of worry that his wife might have been hit by a car, abducted, or frozen in a ditch. He sounded like a man inconvenienced by a stubborn pet. ""She must have started walking toward Highway 30 to make a scene. Stubborn witch."" Marjorie's voice crackled through the speakers, loud and sharp. ""Let her walk, Todd! Don't you dare go chasing after her. She thinks she's better than us just because she manages payroll at that fancy clinic. A wife submits to the household. Once her toes get numb, she'll come crawling to my front door.""
""I know, Mom,"" Todd replied with a cruel chuckle. ""I just wanted to make sure she wasn't hiding in the weeds. If she makes it to the truck stop, she'll probably call an Uber. Let her pay for it. When she gets home tonight, I'm locking the deadbolts. She doesn't get inside until she hands over her purse and signs the power of attorney paperwork your lawyer drew up. If she wants to be part of this family, every cent she makes goes into your account. She works for us, or she doesn't live here."" Sitting in the passenger seat of Samuel's truck, my breath hitched. My entire chest felt hollowed out. A power of attorney? They hadn't just wanted a monthly handout; they had literally planned to legally hijack my identity, my earnings, and my independence. Samuel looked over at me, his jaw set in stone. ""Ma'am,"" he whispered softly, ""I’ve got every word of that saved on a dual-backup cloud drive. You want this file?""
