“You struck me.”
“I was angry.”
“You struck me.”
His shoulders dropped by a fraction.
The words were simple. They did not need decoration. They did not need an explanation.
Arthur placed a recorder on the table.
Marissa sat down in the fourth chair.
She did not ask permission.
I sat opposite her.
Daniel remained standing.
For nearly an hour, we spoke.
I described the loans, the threats, the transfer documents, and the months he and Marissa had lived in the guesthouse without paying rent. Arthur asked precise questions. He never filled the silences. When I stopped to breathe, he waited.
Marissa told the truth too.
She told them about the missing records, the forged signatures, the medication, and the envelope. She told them Daniel had made her promise to say that I was confused and no longer capable of managing my affairs.
She told them he had instructed her to smile while he frightened me.
When she finished, she folded her hands in her lap.
The officer arrived at nine-thirty.
Daniel did not speak while they read him his rights.
At the doorway, he turned toward me.
For one instant, he looked like the boy who had fallen from his bicycle at seven years old and reached for me with a scraped knee.
Then the expression vanished.
“You will regret this,” he said.
I felt the old reflex rise inside me, the instinct to soften his anger before it became dangerous.
I let the instinct pass.
“No,” I said. “I regret waiting this long.”
The officer guided him outside.
Marissa remained in the kitchen.
When the door closed, she stared at the place where he had been.
“I should have stopped him the first time,” she said.
“Yes.”
