Chapter 2 - Behind the Closed Curtains
The rain intensified.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Officer Ramirez, the first patrolman through the gate, looked at Julian.
“You just said she isn’t here?”
Julian spread his hands.
“That’s correct.”
I stared at him.
Ten minutes earlier, he had told me Audrey was safe.
He had called her his wife.
Miriam had said she had become hysterical.
Arthur had described a minor accident involving her car.
Now she supposedly was not in the house.
Marcus walked toward me without making the approach look significant.
“What exactly did you hear?” he asked.
“A woman upstairs.”
Julian scoffed.
“You heard the television.”
“There was no television.”
“You were standing in a thunderstorm.”
Marcus turned toward him.
“You’re Julian Thorne?”
“Yes.”
“And Audrey Thorne is your wife?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
Julian’s eyes moved toward his father.
That glance mattered.
“Staying with a friend.”
“Which friend?”
“I don’t know.”
I glanced at Audrey’s car.
“Without her car or purse?”
Julian ignored me.
Arthur stepped forward.
“Detective, I know Assistant Chief Donnelly personally. I assume you would prefer not to turn a private domestic disagreement into a spectacle.”
Marcus looked at him.
“I prefer answering questions without name-dropping.”
Arthur’s expression hardened.
Miriam moved closer to the doorway.
“She left through the rear entrance.”
“When?” Marcus asked.
“Perhaps thirty minutes ago.”
The timeline was impossible.
Audrey had called me twenty-three minutes before I arrived.
I had driven directly there.
The storm had turned the rear grounds into mud.
If she walked out, she would have left tracks.
More important, I had seen her hand.
But seeing something through rain-streaked glass was not the same as proving identity.
Marcus knew it too.
Police cannot simply enter a home because an angry father says his adult daughter may be inside.
Not without additional legal grounds.
So I gave him more.
“Her emergency application logged her phone at this address six minutes before I arrived.”
Julian’s head turned toward me.
That was the first time he learned the application existed.
I continued.
“The call was interrupted. Her phone stopped transmitting afterward.”
Marcus nodded slowly.
“Any indication she left?”
“No.”
“Do you have the audio?”
“Preserved remotely.”
Julian’s voice sharpened.
“You’ve been spying on my wife?”
“No. She installed it voluntarily.”
Miriam’s composure cracked by half an inch.
“Audrey has always been paranoid.”
Marcus looked toward the upstairs windows.
Then at Audrey’s damaged vehicle.
He gestured toward Officer Ramirez.
“Check the perimeter. Don’t enter. Look for signs someone left.”
Julian stepped down another stair.
“This is harassment.”
“No,” Marcus said. “This is us deciding what happened.”
A second officer walked toward the rear of the house.
Arthur pulled out his phone.
I knew exactly what he was doing.
Calling attorneys.
Calling friends.
Calling whoever had solved problems for the Thornes before.
Marcus turned to me.
“You said he had the bat in both hands?”
“Yes.”
“It was never used,” Julian said.
Marcus glanced toward the wooden bat now lying on the porch.
“Didn’t ask you.”
Silence.
Then Officer Ramirez called from the side yard.
“Detective.”
We turned.
“There’s a broken window near the rear patio.”
Julian cursed under his breath.
Marcus heard it.
“What happened?”
Arthur answered.
“Storm damage.”
Ramirez shook his head.
“Glass is outside, sir.”
That meant the window had likely been broken from inside.
Marcus’s voice changed.
Not louder.
More official.
“Mr. Thorne, I need you and your parents to remain where I can see you.”
Julian’s arrogance returned.
“You don’t have a warrant.”
“No. But I have an emergency call, contradictory statements about your wife’s location, a potentially armed domestic confrontation, a damaged vehicle, and signs of disturbance.”
Arthur said, “You’re overreaching.”
Marcus ignored him.
Then we heard movement inside the mansion.
Fast footsteps.
Everyone looked toward the front door.
A woman appeared.
Audrey.
My heart stopped.
She wore a cream dress.
Her hair was disheveled.
One sleeve had been torn near the shoulder.
There was a dark discoloration along one forearm.
Not severe.
But unmistakable.
She stood just inside the doorway, barefoot.
Julian turned toward her.
“Audrey.”
One word.
Nothing threatening in the tone.
And yet my daughter flinched.
Marcus saw it.
So did I.
She looked at me.
For a second she seemed relieved.
Then her eyes moved to Julian.
And the relief vanished.
“I’m okay,” she said.
I said nothing.
Julian smiled.
“There. Problem solved.”
Audrey descended one step.
“I overreacted.”
Her voice sounded wrong.
Flat.
Rehearsed.
Marcus asked, “Did you call your father?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ask for help?”
Audrey swallowed.
“I was upset.”
“Are you free to leave right now?”
Julian turned his head slightly toward her.
A tiny motion.
But Audrey saw it.
She folded her arms around herself.
“I think everyone should go home.”
My chest hurt.
Part of me wanted to shout.
Tell them what I saw.
Tell Audrey she did not need to protect him.
But I had interviewed enough frightened witnesses to know pressure could make them retreat further.
So I said the only thing I could.
“Kiddo.”
Her eyes met mine.
I had not called her that in years.
“When you were seven, what did you call thunderstorms?”
She blinked.
Julian frowned.
“What?”
Audrey stared at me.
Then whispered, “Sky drums.”
I nodded.
“And what did you do when they scared you?”
A tear gathered in one eye.
“I hid in Mom’s closet.”
“Did you ever have to ask permission to come out?”
Her lower lip trembled.
“No.”
I held out my hand.
“You don’t now either.”
Julian moved toward her.
Officer Ramirez immediately stepped between them.
“Sir, stay there.”
Audrey closed her eyes.
Then, without looking at Julian, she walked down the steps.
One.
Two.
Three.
When she reached me, she did not hug me.
Not immediately.
She simply stood close enough that our shoulders touched.
Then I felt her fingers wrap around my wrist.
Three squeezes.
Pause.
Two squeezes.
My stomach dropped.
It was something Elaine taught her as a child.
A silent signal they used in crowded places.
I need you. Don’t leave.
I looked at Marcus.
“She wants to go.”
Audrey nodded.
Very slightly.
Marcus turned toward her.
“Would you like medical evaluation?”
She hesitated.
Then nodded again.
Julian called after her.
“Audrey, this is ridiculous.”
She froze.
“You know what happens if you turn this into something.”
That sentence changed everything.
Marcus stepped forward.
“What happens?”
Julian realized his mistake.
“I mean to our marriage.”
Audrey’s grip tightened around my wrist.
Arthur interrupted.
“My son is speaking emotionally.”
“Everyone here seems to do that at very convenient times,” Marcus replied.
An ambulance was requested.
While we waited, Audrey sat in the back of a patrol car with the door open.
I stayed near her but did not question her.
That surprised her.
“You’re not going to ask?”
“Not until you’re ready.”
She stared at the mansion.
“Dad…”
“Yeah?”
“I tried to leave.”
My throat tightened.
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
She looked down at her bare feet.
“I tried before I called you.”
Then paramedics arrived.
As they examined her, Julian stood beneath the porch with his parents.
Arthur was already talking to an attorney.
Miriam had recovered her perfect composure.
And Julian kept looking at Audrey as though she belonged to him.
When the ambulance prepared to leave, Marcus pulled me aside.
“Daniel.”
I turned.
“Your server guy called me.”
I had authorized Marcus to contact the technician who maintained Audrey’s emergency archive.
“What did he find?”
“The call didn’t start when you answered.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“The emergency sequence began recording seventy-eight seconds before your phone rang.”
Rainwater ran down Marcus’s face.
“He recovered the entire buffer.”
I looked toward the ambulance.
“What’s on it?”
Marcus lowered his voice.
“Enough that Julian Thorne should be very worried.”
Then he added:
May you like
“And Daniel… his father’s voice is on it too.”
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