Chapter 8 - The Basement Ledger
By the time I pulled up to Willow Creek Lane, the sun was dipping below the horizon, casting long, bloody shadows across the suburban street. A white moving van was backed up to the garage of the house, and two men in unmarked gray uniforms were carrying heavy plastic storage bins out of the basement door.
I didn't climb the wall this time. I walked straight down the center of the driveway, my boots crunching loudly against the concrete.
"Hey!" one of the movers shouted, dropping his side of a bin. "This is private property! You can't be here!"
"Call the police then," I said, walking past him into the open garage.
The door leading to the kitchen was open, and as I stepped inside, the familiar smell of the house hit me—but it was sour now, filled with the scent of cheap liquor and old garbage. I walked down the narrow stairs into the basement, the space where I used to keep my workshop.
Sitting at my old workbench was Jason Vance. He didn't have his boat shoes on; he was wearing an ankle monitor that blinked with a steady, green light against his skin. He was throwing old journals, flash drives, and stacks of legal documents into a portable paper shredder.
When he saw my reflection in the dusty basement window, he spun around, a heavy iron wrench in his hand. "Michael," he hissed, a desperate, feral look in his eyes. "You really are an idiot, aren't you? My father’s firm is about to have you indicted for felony burglary by tomorrow morning, and you walk right back into my house?"
"It's my house too, Jason," I said, stepping closer, my hands at my sides. "My name is still on the deed. I check the property tax assessments every month. I have a legal right to inspect the structure for damage."
Jason laughed, a high, unstable sound. "You think you're clever? You think that little brat of yours is going to stand up in a courtroom and talk down my father’s lawyers? We’ve already bought her medical records from before the divorce. We’re going to prove she was an unstable liar before I ever entered the picture. By the time we're done, you'll be lucky if you're allowed to see her through a glass partition at a state prison."
"Why did you do it, Jason?" I asked, my voice completely flat as I looked at the shredder. "The cage. The dogs. Why?"
"Because she wouldn't look at me the way she looked at you!" he roared, stepping forward and swinging the wrench toward my face.
I didn't duck. I stepped into the swing, catching his wrist with my left hand and driving my right fist straight into his jaw with the full force of twenty years of construction labor. The sound of his jaw breaking was a sharp, clean crack that echoed through the concrete basement. He dropped to his knees, the wrench clattering against the floor, blood immediately spraying from his mouth as he clutched his face.
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I didn't hit him again. I didn't have to. I reached past him to the workbench and grabbed a thick, black leather ledger that had been sitting next to the shredder—a journal Jason had kept for over a year, filled with meticulous, handwritten notes about his daily "discipline" of Emily, complete with dates, times, and descriptions of what he had done to her whenever she asked to call her father.
"You're a sick man, Jason," I whispered, tucking the ledger into my jacket. "And your father’s money can't buy back what's inside this book."
