"No," I said. And then, for the first time in three weeks, I told someone the truth. "Ray, I think my husband is trying to have me committed."
He didn't speak for a moment. Then I heard a chair scrape.
"Where are you?"
"The parking lot at Acme."
"Are you safe right now?"
"Yes. For now."
"Don't say another word on the phone," he said. His voice had changed. It was the voice I remembered from when I was little, the one that came out when someone was in trouble. "Rosie's Diner on Market Street. Tomorrow, eight a.m. Bring everything."
I got there twenty minutes early. Ray was already in the corner booth, both hands wrapped around a coffee mug, watching the door.
I slid my phone across the table and let him scroll through the pictures.
He looked at every one. He didn't say a word. He read the binder page by page, and when he got to Dr. Voss's letter, his jaw tightened, and when he got to Derek's list, he took off his reading glasses and set them carefully on the table.
"Kiddo," he said. "Do you know what you're looking at?"
"A setup."
"It's more than that. It's a very well-built one." He tapped the screen. "This isn't a man who woke up angry. This is a man who's been planning it for months. You see this? The affidavit? The petition? The doctor's letter, all pre-drafted, all dated for after the dinner? They've made the paper before you ever knew you were being framed."
"Why?"
"The house." He tapped the yellow sheet. "Four hundred and twelve thousand. If they can get you declared unfit and a guardian appointed over your finances, whoever controls that guardianship controls Linden Street. Your husband, most likely."
I felt sick.
"Your dad used to say, People lie, paper doesn't," Ray said quietly. "Well. Here's paper that's lying. And that means somewhere out there is paper that isn't."
He pushed my phone back across the table.
"Now listen to me carefully. You do not confront him. You do not tell him you know. You go home, you act exactly the same as you have been acting, and you let me make a phone call."
"To who?"
"Angela Ruiz. She's a detective with the Sheriff's Office now. Your father trained her." Ray's mouth twisted into something like a smile. "She's the best I know. And she owes me a favor."
Then he leaned forward, and his old blue eyes were fierce.