Before they spotted me, I managed to take seven photographs. Then David jumped off the bed and shouted, "Give me that camera!"
I reached behind me for the weapon I had taken from the lockbox in my den.
David stopped, sneered, and said, "You don't have the guts." A second later, after I reacted, he dropped to the floor, screaming in pain.
"My God," my father shouted. "You did that to your own brother?"
I looked at him coldly. "The only reason you're still standing here is that I'd rather let Mom have the joy of dealing with you herself."
Sonia, my wife of nine years, was crying. "Don't hurt me, please. I'm begging you."
I ignored her and looked at my father. "I don't know what makes me angrier: that you were with my wife, or that the two of you were doing things with her that she had always refused to do with me. Either way, I'm resigning. You'll need to change the sign on the building from Dawson and Sons to Dawson and Son. Maybe just Dawson's, depending on what happens next."
As I turned to leave, my father demanded to know where I was going.
"To your house," I said. "I'm showing Mom the pictures."
"Hold on. We need to talk."
"You might need to talk. I don't want to hear it."
He shouted after me as I walked outside, but I ignored him. Before leaving, I disabled his car so he could not race home ahead of me. Then I drove two blocks, pulled over, and called my mother.
I would have preferred to show her the photographs in person, but I knew emergency responders and police would probably be involved soon. When she answered, I told her I was sending photographs she needed to see before Dad came home. She had questions, but I told her I would call again later.
I glanced at my watch and realized I had roughly an hour before the bank closed. As I drove there, I replayed the entire day in my head.
I had returned one day early from a business trip and found my father's car in my driveway. At first, that did not seem strange. I had often asked him to check on Sonia while I traveled, make sure she was all right, and help if she needed anything.
When I opened the front door, however, the sounds coming from the bedroom told me immediately that something was wrong. I went to the den, opened the lockbox in the bottom drawer of my desk, took the firearm I kept there, and went toward the bedroom while recording with my phone.
There was Sonia with David and my father. In that instant, I understood something that had bothered me for months: whenever the family business needed someone to travel, I was always the one sent out of town while David stayed home.
At the bank, I emptied the accounts I controlled and cashed the certificates of deposit from the safe-deposit box. By the time I left, I had just over $118,000. I then went to the bank that handled the company's accounts and withdrew another large amount, convincing myself in that moment that it was severance pay even though I knew others might call it theft.
I was not thinking clearly enough to care. I believed I might already be facing serious consequences for what had happened with David.
Before leaving town, I called Cindy, David's wife. She answered just as she was preparing to go to the hospital.
"Bob, what's going on?" she asked. "Your dad called and said what you did to Dave."
"I came home early from a business trip and found him with Sonia," I told her. "I took photographs. When he came after the camera, things got out of control. I'm sending the pictures to your email. I'm sorry you have to find out this way, but you deserve to know."
I ended the call, drove past the city limits, and headed west. A few miles out, I stopped long enough to make it harder for anyone to follow my movements, then continued driving. I wanted as much distance between me and Michigan as I could get.
Two days later, I reached Colorado. I checked into a motel outside Denver and finally called home from a prepaid phone.
My mother answered after three rings.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Mom."
"Bob, where are you?"
I stayed deliberately vague. I did not want anyone using my mother to locate me.
"I'm just trying to put as much distance as possible between myself, Sonia, David, and Dad," I said.
"Did you really have to do that to David? He's never going to walk properly again."
"He's lucky it wasn't worse," I said. "I thought Cindy deserved to know what kind of man she was married to."
"She did," Mom said. "She threw him out and met with a lawyer the next day."
Then she surprised me.
"You need to come back. I'm probably going to end up controlling the business, and I'll need your help."
"Why do you think you'll control it?"
"The company was built with money I inherited from my father. My lawyer thinks I'll receive enough in the divorce to hold a controlling interest."
I laughed bitterly. "Are you keeping the name Dawson and Sons? Or changing it to Dawson and Son?"
"Don't be like that, Bob. Dave is still my son, just like you are."
"If he's there, I won't be. I can't be around him without wanting to hurt him."
Mom hesitated, then said, "You should call Sonia. She needs to talk to you."
"I don't want to talk to her."
"Divorce usually involves lawyers and conversations eventually."
"What divorce? I left. If she wants to be legally single again, she can start it and pay for it."
"Do you really need to insult her?"
"Mom, what do you call a married woman who has been secretly sleeping with her husband's father and brother?"
She said nothing for a moment.
"I only called to tell you I'm alive," I said. "I'll try to check in once a week. I love you. Bye."
I ended the call without mentioning the money I had taken from the company. Since nobody had raised it yet, I assumed they had not discovered the withdrawal.
I spent about a week around Denver. I liked the mountains and briefly imagined staying, but it felt too soon to settle anywhere. I needed movement more than I needed a home.