But Marcus had warned me.
“If she did this, don’t scare her yet. People destroy evidence when they know you’re looking.”
For once in my life, I listened.
Marcus found Laura the next morning.
She was living in an apartment above a laundromat on the south side of the city.
Technically, it wasn’t even her apartment.
A sixty-three-year-old woman named Ruth from a church food pantry rented it and let Laura stay there for whatever she could afford.
Most months, that meant almost nothing.
Laura had worked temporary bookkeeping jobs while pregnant
I went silent.
It was a brutal sentence.
It was also true.
“You threw her out,” Marcus continued. “You froze her money. You refused to hear her. If you suddenly appear at her door with power, money, lawyers and security, what do you think she’ll feel?”
I knew the answer.
Fear.
So I did something I should have done a long time ago.
I gave Laura control.