Chapter 3 - Pretty Like Mommy
They released Emma three days after Christmas.
The doctors sent us home with enough medical supplies to stock a small pharmacy — silver sulfadiazine cream for the wounds, sterile gauze rolls by the case, heavy-duty painkillers, two different antibiotics, and a thick stack of aftercare instructions that basically boiled down to don’t let anything touch her face for six weeks. No wind, no sun, no dirty hands, no hugs that weren’t carefully choreographed.
Our house was still technically a crime scene when we got back. The yellow tape was gone, but the forensics team had left their mark — fingerprint powder dusted the mantel like gray snow, the carpet by the tree had been cut out in a square where the gift box had sat, and Richard’s drain cleaner bottle was gone forever into an evidence locker.
The Christmas tree was still up. I stared at it for ten minutes in the doorway, then marched over, grabbed the trunk, and dragged the whole thing — lights, ornaments, tinsel and all — out onto the back porch. Daniel tried to help. I pushed his hand away.
“I got it.”
We spent the first week in a kind of numb fog. Every two hours, around the clock, one of us had to reapply the burn cream and change the dressings. Emma screamed every time. The sound of it would echo through the empty house, and I’d find myself standing in the kitchen gripping the counter so hard my nails broke the skin, while Daniel held her down gently on the couch whispering I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry over and over like a prayer.
Detective Alvarez came by every other day with updates. Richard was still gone. The airport cameras showed him walking into Terminal B at 10:42 AM on Christmas morning — ten minutes after he’d left our house — then walking straight back out a side exit twenty minutes later. A taxi driver had picked him up curbside and dropped him at a bus station in Worcester. After that, the trail went cold.
“Bus station is a dead end for cameras,” she told us over coffee at our kitchen table. “He could’ve gone anywhere. New York, Philly, up to Canada. Greyhound doesn’t require ID for tickets under two hundred bucks.” She flipped open her notebook. “But we did find something interesting. He bought the drain cleaner at a hardware store in Auburn on December 20th. Paid cash. Wore a baseball cap and a hoodie, but the security camera got a clear shot of his boots. Custom hunting boots with his initials carved into the side. No question it’s him.”
She slid a photo across the table. Richard, face hidden, leaning over the hardware store counter, sliding a twenty-dollar bill to the cashier. In his other hand, the familiar white plastic bottle.
“He planned this,” I said. “Four days ahead.”
“At least four,” she agreed. “And the skincare set? Ordered from Amazon November 28th. Shipped to a PO box in Worcester under the name R. Carter. Elaine’s maiden name.”
I looked up fast. “Carter?”
“Mmhmm. He’s been using it for months. PO box rental, the hardware store receipt, even the fake name he used to buy a burner phone two weeks before Christmas. All R. Carter.” She watched my face. “You’re thinking what I’m thinking. He didn’t just hate you, Claire. He hated Elaine. And you were the closest thing he had to her in thirty years. Same face. Same attitude. Same refusal to let him walk all over you. You were his do-over. He finally got to finish what he started in ’93.”
Daniel said nothing. He was staring at the photo of his father at the hardware store, his expression unreadable.
After Detective Alvarez left, I followed him into the garage. He was rummaging through an old tool chest, his hands shaking.
“Daniel,” I said, leaning against the doorframe. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He froze. Then he slowly closed the tool chest drawer and turned to face me. His eyes were red.
“I should’ve seen it coming,” he said quietly. “Growing up… it wasn’t normal. I know that now. But when you’re a kid, you think everyone’s dad is like that. You think yelling at the dinner table ‘til the dishes rattle is normal. You think throwing your son’s birthday cake in the trash ‘cause he struck out in Little League is how dads show they care.”
He sat down on an old paint bucket, his head in his hands.
“Mom left when I was seven. Couldn’t take it anymore. Moved to Florida, remarried, had a new family. Barely calls. And then it was just me and him. For ten years, it was just me and him in that big cold house. And I thought — I thought if I was perfect enough, if I got straight A’s, if I made captain of the football team, if I married the right girl and gave him the perfect granddaughter… finally, he’d love me. Finally, he’d be proud.”
His voice broke.
“I spent thirty-four years trying to earn the love of a man who doesn’t know how to love anything but his own ego. And when you came along — strong, smart, you didn’t take his crap — he hated you for it. ‘Cause you were everything I should’ve been. Everything he was scared I’d become. And I let him. I let him say those things about you. I let him isolate you. ‘Cause I was scared. Scared if I took your side, he’d finally throw me away too.”
The garage was quiet except for the hum of the freezer in the corner.
I looked at my husband — really looked at him — and saw not the strong man I’d married, but a scared little boy who’d never grown up, still trying to please a father who’d never be pleased.
“Daniel,” I said softly, “he threw you away the second he bought that acid. You know that, right? He didn’t just try to hurt Emma. He tried to destroy you. Your marriage. Your family. Everything you’ve built. And you let him get halfway there ‘cause you were too scared to stop being his little boy.”
I turned and walked back into the house before he could answer. I didn’t have it in me to forgive him yet. Maybe I never would.
That night, after Emma was asleep, I couldn’t rest. I found myself in the home office, scrolling through old family photos on the computer. I don’t know what I was looking for — proof that Richard had always been evil, proof that Daniel had once been good, something to make sense of the chaos.
I was halfway through the 2019 vacation album when my phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.
He didn’t act alone. Check your husband’s bank account. 12/11/26. $5,000 cash withdrawal. Ask him where it went.
My thumb hovered over the screen. Who is this? I typed back.
Someone who’s spent 30 years watching Richard Pierce get away with murder. Don’t trust anyone. Especially not the ones who sleep in your bed.
The number went dead after that. No reply to my follow-up texts. No calls.
My hands were shaking as I logged into our joint checking account. I rarely looked at the statements — Daniel handled the bills, always had. I scrolled back to December 11th.
There it was.
12/11/26 — ATM WITHDRAWAL — $5,000.00
Five thousand dollars in cash. From an ATM in Worcester. The same town where Richard had rented the PO box. The same town where he’d bought the drain cleaner.
I stared at the screen until my eyes burned.
Five thousand dollars. What did you buy with five thousand dollars in cash? A gun? A fake ID? A hitman?
Or someone’s silence?
I closed the laptop and stood in the dark office, listening to the house breathe. Down the hall, Emma murmured in her sleep. In the guest room — where Daniel had been sleeping since the hospital — I heard him cough.
I thought of the text. Especially not the ones who sleep in your bed.
I thought of Daniel deleting that text from Richard on Christmas morning. I thought of the three calls to Portland. I thought of him standing in the airport terminal with his father, maybe, handing over an envelope of cash while Richard told him exactly what he planned to do to our daughter.
He knew, the voice in my head whispered again. Louder this time. He knew and he let it happen.
I walked down the hall to the guest room. The door was slightly ajar. Daniel was asleep on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes. His phone was charging on the nightstand, face up.
I stood in the doorway for a long time, watching him breathe.
Once, I would’ve walked in, curled up next to him, let his arms around me make everything okay.
Now, I just wanted to know the truth.
The next morning, I called a lawyer. Not a divorce lawyer — not yet — but a criminal defense attorney who specialized in family violence cases. I told him everything: the acid, the texts, the bank withdrawal, the dead ends in the police investigation.
“Mrs. Pierce,” he said when I finished, “you need a private investigator. Yesterday. The cops are good, but they’re swamped. They’re looking for Richard. They’re not looking at your husband. And if what you’re saying is true — if Daniel had any foreknowledge of this attack, or helped his father afterward — you need proof before he takes your daughter and disappears.”
He gave me a name. Jake Rainer. Ex-cop, left the force after he got tired of watching rich guys buy their way out of trouble. Did PI work now, mostly for women in situations just like mine.
I called him at 10 AM. By noon, he was sitting at my kitchen table, drinking bad coffee, flipping through the police reports I’d printed out. He was in his late forties, gray at the temples, scar across his left eyebrow, wore a leather jacket even though it was forty degrees outside.
“Five grand cash in Worcester,” he muttered, circling the withdrawal on the bank statement. “Same town as the PO box and the hardware store. That’s not a coincidence. And your husband says it was for a work client?”
“Claims he withdrew it to pay a subcontractor who only takes cash,” I said. “But he can’t produce a receipt. And the subcontractor swears he was paid by check on December 9th.”
Jake grinned without humor. “Classic. Guy thinks he’s clever. Alright, Mrs. Pierce — here’s what I’m gonna do. First, I’m gonna track that cash. It’s not easy, but five grand in hundreds leaves a trail if you know where to look. Second, I’m gonna pull every record on Daniel Pierce for the last six months — cell towers, credit cards, E-ZPass, the works. If he so much as bought a pack of gum within a mile of his father, I’ll find it. Third —” he leaned forward “— I’m gonna find Richard. The cops are looking for him like he’s a normal fugitive who wants to disappear. But Richard Pierce isn’t normal. He’s a narcissist with a grudge. He didn’t run ‘cause he was scared. He ran ‘cause he’s planning something else. And until we find him, your daughter isn’t safe.”
He stood, slipping the papers into a manila folder.
“One more thing. My retainer’s five grand. Cash, if you have it. And everything we find — everything — goes straight to you first. Not the cops, not your husband, you. Got it?”
I nodded. “Got it.”
He was halfway out the door when he stopped.
“Oh, and Mrs. Pierce? Change the locks. Today. And put a security system in. Cameras front and back. Motion lights. If Daniel asks, tell him it’s for Emma’s protection ‘cause Richard is still out there. Which is true. Just… not the whole truth.”
After he left, I did exactly what he said. I called a locksmith. I ordered a top-of-the-line security system off Amazon with next-day delivery. I moved Emma into the master bedroom with me, pushing the king-sized bed against the wall so there was only one way in.
That night, I lay awake next to my sleeping daughter, listening to the house creak. The new alarm system was armed. The new locks were turned. But I still felt exposed.
Around 2 AM, my phone buzzed again. The same unknown number.
Good. You hired Rainer. Smart. Now look at Daniel’s search history on his work laptop. 12/15. “How long does sulfuric acid take to burn skin?” And “chemical burn liability home insurance.” He knew, Claire. He knew before Christmas morning.
I threw the covers off and ran to the office. Daniel’s work laptop was on the desk, closed. I knew his password — our anniversary, the same one he used for everything. I typed it in.
The search history was still there. He hadn’t even bothered to delete it.
December 15th, 8:47 PM — sulfuric acid skin burn onset time
December 15th, 8:49 PM — second degree chemical burn treatment
December 15th, 9:02 PM — homeowners insurance coverage intentional acts family member
December 15th, 9:17 PM — can a parent lose custody for failing to protect a child
I read the last one four times before it sank in.
Can a parent lose custody for failing to protect a child.
He wasn’t just researching the burns. He was researching what would happen to me after Emma was burned. He was calculating how to use his father’s attack to take my daughter away.
The laptop slipped in my fingers and clattered onto the desk.
In the guest room down the hall, Daniel’s alarm went off. 2:30 AM — his usual time to get up and check on Emma before his early work shift.
I heard his feet hit the floor.
I closed the laptop fast, but not fast enough. He was standing in the office doorway before I could stand up.
“Claire?” He rubbed his eyes, confused. “What are you doing up? What’s wrong?”
I looked at my husband — the man who’d held our daughter while she screamed, the man who’d cried at her bedside, the man who’d just spent the last two weeks pretending to be the grieving, innocent father — and I saw it all clearly now.
The fear. The lies. The cold, calculating research into how to profit from his own daughter’s pain.
“Nothing,” I heard myself say, my voice surprisingly steady. “Just couldn’t sleep. Checking emails.”
He nodded, still half-asleep, and wandered toward the kitchen for water.
I stood in the dark office, my heart hammering against my ribs like a bird trapped in a cage.
May you like
Jake was right. Richard wasn’t the only monster in this story.
And I was living under the same roof as the other one.
