“Let go of my wrist, Derek.” I said it quietly. He tightened his grip.

The fluorescent lights of the local precinct’s interview room buzzed with that familiar, institutional drone that smelled of cheap floor wax and decades of bad decisions.

I sat on a metal folding chair near the door, my dress mostly dry now, though the sour smell of stale beer still lingered faintly in the fabric. Daniel sat beside me, his knee bouncing a nervous rhythm against the tile floor. Across the table, Detective Miller—a sharp-eyed woman with her hair pulled back into a severe bun—tapped a pen against a manila folder.

In the adjacent room, through the one-way glass, Derek was currently learning that "family business" doesn't exempt you from state kidnapping statutes.

"Let’s go over the timeline again, Mrs. Lawson," Detective Miller said, looking directly at Erin, who sat at the opposite end of the table with a Styrofoam cup of lukewarm water between her hands.

Erin took a shaky breath. "We arrived at Diane’s around one o'clock. Derek told me to leave my purse and my phone in the guest room 'so we could relax.' When I went upstairs to get my phone because Owen wanted to play a game, I saw the walk-in closet. My suitcase was there. All three of our passports were in a ziplock bag on the bed with a note from Diane’s travel agent."

"And the text messages?" Detective Miller prompted.

Erin reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, placing it flat on the table like an offering. "I screenshot the family group chat before I came downstairs. They’ve been planning it for three weeks. They picked a date when my sister was out of town so nobody in my family could intervene."

Detective Miller slid the phone toward herself, tapping the screen to review the logs. A grim line formed at the corner of her mouth.

"Conspiracy to commit parental kidnapping across state lines, unlawful restriction of movement, and coercion," Detective Miller muttered, jotting down notes. "Add that to Derek’s assault charges for the chemical exposure—"

"Chemical exposure?" Daniel interrupted, frowning. "Wait, what chemical exposure?"

Detective Miller looked up. "Oh, you didn't hear? The field test on the liquid Derek poured on Claire came back from the lab twenty minutes ago. It wasn't beer."

My stomach tightened. "What was it?"

"It was a concentrated industrial solvent from Derek’s garage—paint stripper containing methylene chloride," Detective Miller said flatly. "If it had hit your eyes or mucous membranes directly, it could have caused chemical burns or permanent vision loss. The hospital report confirms minor dermal blistering on your collarbone and neck."

The room went dead silent.

Daniel’s face drained of color. He stood up so fast his metal chair screeched against the floor, his fists clenched so tight his forearms trembled.

"He tried to blind my wife," Daniel whispered, the words coming out as a lethal hiss. "With paint stripper."

"He claimed it was an accident during the scuffle, of course," Detective Miller sighed, clicking her pen. "He said he thought he was holding a soda. But given the texts we pulled from his phone coordinating the timing with Diane—discussing how to 'distract' you both while they loaded Erin’s car—the prosecutor is going to have a field day with intent."

I reached out and grabbed Daniel’s wrist, pulling him back down into his seat. "Sit down, D. Let the detective work."

"I'm going to kill him," Daniel muttered, though he let me guide him back to the chair. "My own brother. For three years I made excuses for him. I told you he was just stressed about his business, that he was under pressure—"

"You made excuses because you wanted to believe your family wasn't capable of this," I said softly. "It’s a normal reaction. People don't want to admit that the people they share holidays with are monsters in designer polo shirts."

Detective Miller looked at me with a flicker of professional respect. "You handled him pretty well in the yard, Mrs. Lawson. Where’d you pick up that sweep?"

"Three years in the regional bantamweight circuit before I retired to work in risk management," I said. "Turns out, reading corporate fraud and reading an opponent’s center of gravity use the exact same part of the brain."

A rare, dry smile touched the detective’s lips. "Well, your risk assessment skills just saved your sister-in-law from a very bad situation. The judge signed an emergency 72-hour protective custody order for Owen, and Erin is formally filing for sole custody and a restraining order tonight."

"What about Diane?" Erin asked, her voice stronger now, the tremor finally leaving her fingers. "Will she be charged?"

"Accessory before the fact on the kidnapping conspiracy, plus tampering with a witness," Detective Miller said. "She’s currently sitting in holding down the hall, crying about how her bridge club is going to find out. Apparently, maintaining her social standing was more important than your safety."

Erin let out a long, shuddering breath—the sound of a person shedding a thirty-pound weight they’d been forced to carry uphill for years. She looked across the table at me, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

"Thank you, Claire," she whispered. "If you hadn't... if you hadn't stopped him when he grabbed your wrist... I don't know where Owen and I would be tonight."

"You don't have to thank me," I told her, squeezing her hand across the cold metal table. "You survived. That’s all that matters."

Just then, the heavy door of the interview room swung open, and a young constable leaned in, addressing Detective Miller.

"Ma'am, you've got a visitor in the lobby asking for Claire Lawson. Says she’s Claire’s mother."

My mother.

Of course. Sibil Lawson had finally tracked us down. For all her flaws—her complete inability to care about anything that didn't directly affect her golf handicap or her social calendar—she hadn't raised me to be a doormat. But she had spent my entire childhood telling me to "keep sweet," to smile for the camera, and to never, under any circumstances, make a scene in public.