Chapter 4 - The Fortress of Silence
The safe house was a glass and steel structure hidden deep in the hills.
It was a place of quiet,
of soft music,
and of people who moved with a silent,
professional grace.
For the first forty-eight hours,
I didn't speak.
I let the doctors change my dressings.
I let the nurses administer the pain medication that Miriam had stolen from me.
I let the world fade into a blur of clean sheets and high-quality soup.
Ethan was always there,
sitting in a chair by the window,
his laptop open,
his fingers dancing across the keys.
He was a conductor,
and he was preparing a symphony of destruction.
"They called,"
he said on the third morning,
not looking up from the screen.
"Garrick?"
I asked,
my voice finally returning,
though it was still thin.
"And the mother,"
Ethan replied.
"They went to the police,
of course."
"But when the officers arrived at the house,
they found something interesting."
I sat up,
the movement still painful,
but no longer impossible.
"What did they find?"
"They found the trash can,"
Ethan said,
a grim smile touching his lips.
"The one containing your discarded medical supplies."
"The one containing the empty bottle of prescription medication that Miriam admitted to flushing."
"And they found the security footage from the neighbor's house."
"The footage that shows a woman in a surgical gown mowing the lawn in hundred-degree heat while her husband watches from the porch."
I looked at my hands,
now clean and bandaged.
"Is that enough?"
"For a criminal charge of domestic abuse and medical neglect?"
Ethan asked.
"Yes."
"But that’s just the beginning,
Elena."
"The law moves slowly."
"I move fast."
He turned the laptop toward me.
"This is Garrick’s employment contract."
"There is a morality clause."
"It states that any action bringing disrepute to the company is grounds for immediate termination without severance."
"The CEO of his company is a golf partner of mine."
"He was...
very concerned when I sent him the video of you on the lawn."
I felt a strange sensation in my chest.
It wasn't pain.
It was light.
"And Miriam?"
"Miriam is the treasurer of her church's charity fund,"
Ethan said.
"I’ve spent the last twelve hours having her accounts audited by the best forensic accountants in the state."
"It turns out,
she’s been 'borrowing' from the poor to pay for those expensive hats she wears to Sunday service."
I leaned back against the pillows,
closing my eyes.
"They thought I was nothing,"
I whispered.
"They thought you were a tool they could use to feel superior,"
Ethan corrected me.
"They forgot that tools can be sharp."
"They forgot that when you hurt someone,
you create a debt."
"And I am the debt collector."
I fell asleep that afternoon to the sound of the wind through the trees.
For the first time in years,
I didn't dream of cancer.
I didn't dream of the bathroom floor.
May you like
I dreamed of a world where I was finally,
utterly free.
