Chapter 5 - The Broken Phone
At 8:45 AM, the kitchen door swung open, and Helen walked back in holding a crystal tumbler of orange juice spiked with vodka. She looked down at Clara, who was carefully plating three sets of poached eggs onto porcelain dinner plates.
"Nicole showed me your little social media post from last night, Clara," Helen said, her voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper.
Clara froze. The silver serving tongs hovered over the plate.
"What post?" Clara asked, her voice barely audible.
Helen took a slow sip from her glass, walking around the island until she was standing between Clara and the hallway exit. "The one where you asked your former nursing school friends about legal resources for pregnant women without joint accounts. The one where you dared to suggest you were being isolated."
Trent, who had been sitting at the breakfast nook scrolling through his stock portfolio, looked up instantly. His eyes darkened.
"You did what?" Trent asked, rising from his chair so quickly the hardwood legs squeaked in protest.
"It was a private group," Clara stammered, backing away until the base of her spine met the sharp edge of the granite counter. "I was just asking questions. Trent, you took my credit cards last month. I haven't been able to buy prenatal vitamins without asking your mother for cash!"
Trent crossed the space between them in three long strides. He grabbed Clara's canvas tote bag hanging on the kitchen chair, turned it upside down, and dumped the contents across the floor. Out spilled a lipstick, a maternity appointment brochure, and her personal smartphone.
Trent picked up the phone.
"Give that back to me," Clara pleaded, lunging forward instinctively. "Trent, that has my sonogram photos on it! Please!"
Trent didn't flinch. He raised his boot and brought the heavy heel down directly onto the center of the screen. The glass shattered with an explosive crunch. He twisted his foot, grinding the lithium battery and the motherboard into ruined, smoking fragments against the tile.
"You don't need a phone," Trent said, smiling coldly down at the wreckage. "You don't have friends, Clara. You have this family. And until you learn to show respect to my mother and to this name, you don't communicate with the outside world."
Nicole stood in the doorway, snickering as she captured the broken phone on her camera. "Should've seen that coming, Cinderella."
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Clara dropped to her knees, weeping silently as she looked at the shattered glass. But inside the waistband of her maternity leggings, pressed against the small of her back, she felt the faint, steady micro-pulsing of the beacon.
*Two hours,* she told herself through the agony. *Marcus is coming. He has to be.*
