Then I heard the voices coming from the back room.
“You don’t understand, Melanie,” Lucas’s voice was low, smooth, and dangerously calm—the exact tone he used when trying to gaslight me. “I did this for us. For our baby.”
“You lied to me!” Melanie’s voice was sob-racked and terrified. “You told me your wife was crazy! You told me you never knew my family! But I found the picture, Lucas! I found my mother’s ring in your suit pocket!”
“Your mother left that behind when she abandoned us!” Lucas snapped, his composure slipping for a fraction of a second. “She was going to ruin everything. Just like Anne’s father tried to ruin me. But I fixed it. I took care of all of it.”
“She didn’t abandon us,” Melanie cried out. “What did you do to her, Lucas? What did you do to my mother?!”
