MY HUSBAND POURED BOILING WATER ON ME, DEMANDING A…
“Not unless you ask for him.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
The word came easily.
“No.”
The detective nodded.
Then she asked,
“Do you believe he intentionally burned you?”
I looked at my sister.
Then at the doctor.
Then down at my hands.
“Yes.”
“Did he say anything while he was doing it?”
I swallowed.
“He said he would boil my belly until a son came out.”
The detective’s expression changed.
She wrote it down.
“Anything else?”
“He said I was useless because I couldn’t give him a boy.”
Rebecca squeezed my hand.
I remembered something.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“His phone.”
The detective looked up.
“Where is it?”
My father’s attorney.
The detective looked at me.
“Caroline, does your father have an estate?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does he have a trust?”
“I thought it was gone.”
The detective looked at Rebecca.
Rebecca’s face had gone pale.
“I remember Dad mentioning something.”
“What?”
“He said Luke wasn’t allowed to know about it.”
I stared at her.
“What did he say?”
Rebecca leaned closer.
“Dad told me that if you ever married Luke, I was supposed to make sure you contacted Mr. Bennett.”
My heart pounded.
“Why didn’t you?”
“I tried.”
“Luke blocked everything.”
Rebecca started crying.
“I didn’t know how bad it was.”
The detective looked at the phone again.
“Then this isn’t only a domestic violence case.”
She pointed toward the screen.
“We may be looking at financial fraud, medical fraud, and potentially a conspiracy involving your pregnancies.”
I closed my eyes.
For years, Luke had told me I was worthless.
He told me my body was broken.
He told me nobody would believe me.
He told me I needed him.
But now the truth was sitting inside a phone he had forgotten to hide.
The doctor came back into the room.
“Caroline?”
I opened my eyes.
“There is one more thing.”
“What?”
She held a folder against her chest.
“We ran additional tests.”
My heart began racing.
“What did you find?”
She looked at me carefully.
“The injuries are serious, but there is evidence you may have been pregnant very recently.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
She nodded.
“We need to confirm it with additional testing.”
Rebecca covered her mouth.
The detective immediately stood.
“If Caroline is pregnant, then we need to know why Luke’s messages refer to her next pregnancy.”
