was glorious.
She minimized the letter again and had to think about whether or not she’d say anything. She didn’t want to interfere with his business, and she appreciated that the reasons for letting Harper go could be totally unrelated to her, but her intuition said they weren't.
Meg logged out and turned off the monitor, but stayed sitting in his chair, looking at the frames he had situated on his desk. For someone who said business was all he thought about, Jason had an awful lot of pictures of people on display. There were pictures of him and his siblings when they were children. Pictures of Grace, Mark, and Molly. A picture of Jason with Owen and Nate playing pond hockey. The picture she gave him was there, as well as several shots from their wedding, including a portrait of her alone.
Her portrait was the largest.
All of these could have been explained away as part of their cover story, but there was one picture that didn’t need to be there, and its presence reached right in and touched Meg’s heart.
It was from Halloween, right before they’d left her mother’s to trick-or-treat around the neighborhood. Jason had handed his phone to her mother to snap a shot of the three of them before they headed off.
It was a family moment, and what struck her about it was how happy they looked. They were a family. A happy family.
It was real.
***
“Mommy?” Molly climbed up on one of the stools at the kitchen island.
“Yes?” Meg was flipping through the newspaper on her iPad while she ate her cereal. They had to leave for work and school in an hour, and breakfast was a time when she and Molly got to catch up. “What would you like for breakfast?”
“I don’t know. What kind of breakfast do they serve in jail?”
Meg froze with a mouthful of Cheerios. “Excuse me? Jail?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Molly, why would you ask such a thing?”
“Because of the police car out front.”
“Police car?”
Just as she said it, the doorbell rang, and Meg’s stomach sank. Had there been an accident? A crash? Horrible scenarios played through her head. Scenarios that included everyone she loved, including Jason.
When she got to the door and opened it, the person she encountered was Jason’s mother. Standing behind her was a county sheriff’s deputy and a young, attractive woman who could have been one of Meg’s colleagues, based on how she was dressed.
“Mrs. Campbell? What are you doing here? It’s barely seven thirty.”
“I’m here for my granddaughter.”
“Molly has to go to school, but I’ll bring her over later if you’d like.” What the hell was going on? Then things started to click as Meg took in the whole scene. The woman was carrying a folder that was embossed with the seal of the county family court.
Family court. Sheriff. Wicked mother-in-law. Oh. shit.
Meg took Molly by the shoulder and gently shifted her so she wasn’t right near the door. The sheriff took a step, and Meg stepped back.
“No.” She started shaking her head violently. “No, you can’t take her.”
“Mommy?”
“Mommy?” Mrs. Campbell said. “She’s not your mother, Molly. Not even close.”
“Ma’am,” the sheriff said. “We have an order executed by the family court that the child is to be removed from the home into the custody of her grandparents until such time that the court decides on a permanent placement.”
The young woman stepped forward and handed Meg a stack of papers, and Meg could barely hold on because everything in her was shaking. She was fighting off a wave so icy cold, she was shivering from the fear. They were taking Molly. Taking her, and Meg didn’t know what to do. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was supposed to be safe with Jason in this house, but they were taking her baby, and Meg couldn’t do anything but scream.
“NO! NO! You can’t take her. You can’t! Why would you take her? My husband—”
Meg was cut off by the snide response of her mother-in-law. “Your husband isn’t here. He’s out of the country. But just like the past, Meg, when you thought he was yours, he stayed loyal to his family.”
“No, he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.”
His mother tapped the folder. “He signed one of the documents. It’s right in there.”
Meg didn’t even have time to process Jason’s betrayal before the sheriff pushed her aside and took Molly by the hand. “NOOOOOOO!” the little girl screamed, and when she fought him too much, the deputy picked Molly up and carried her to the