Chapter 2 - The Drive to BarringtonThe interstate between Providence and Barrington at 2:20 A.M. was an empty ribbon of black asphalt bordered by dark stands of coastal pine. Adrian’s Volvo sedan tore through the slush, the twin halogen headlights cutting through the light fog rising off Narragansett Bay.
He kept the phone mounted on his dashboard, the live audio playing through the car’s speakers.
Inside the Barrington nursery, the silence was heavy, punctuated only by the occasional high-pitched whimpering from Miles’s crib.
“You should go down to the guest room,” Evelyn’s voice came through the car speakers, cold and flat. “You look dreadful, Lydia. Your face is sunken. If Adrian were here, he would be horrified by what you’ve let yourself become.”
“I’m staying... with my son,” Lydia’s voice was thick, slurred, fighting against the heavy weight of the sedative in her blood.
“He is a Harwood,” Evelyn said calmly. “He belongs to a life you cannot provide for. Do you know what your father’s estate owed when he died, Lydia? Forty-two thousand dollars in unsecured medical debt. You come from people who fail under pressure. I won't allow my grandson to inherit that weakness.”
Adrian slammed his palm against the steering wheel, his teeth set so hard his jaw ached.
Twelve years ago, when his father died, Evelyn had taken over the family trust with the same iron precision. She had driven away Adrian’s younger sister, who now lived in California and hadn't spoken to the family in four years. Adrian had stayed, convincing himself that if he worked hard, built his own reputation in marine engineering, and maintained a polite distance, he could manage his mother’s sharp edges.
He had brought Lydia into that trap. He had brought his wife—a woman who used to paint bright watercolor illustrations of foxes and blue jays in a sunlit studio—into a house where every hallway was monitored for social compliance.
He pulled out his headset and dialed a number he hadn't used in three years.
The line rang four times before a gruff, alert voice answered.
“Harwood? It’s two in the morning. Did a barge hit the Washington Bridge again?”
“Gabe,” Adrian said, his voice dropping an octave into the tone he used when a vessel was taking on water in open ocean. “I need you at my house in Barrington. Right now.”
Gabe Vance—no relation to Evelyn’s lawyer, Jonathan Vance—was a former Coast Guard investigator who ran a private security and risk-assessment firm in Warwick. He and Adrian had worked together on a maritime arson case involving a commercial fishing vessel two winters prior.
“What’s the situation?” Gabe asked, the sound of a rustling jacket already audible through the mic.
“My mother is inside my house,” Adrian said clearly. “She has been dosing my wife with unprescribed sedatives through her drinking water for seventy-two hours. She has hired a private legal team and a photographer to stage a welfare check at nine this morning to take my son.”
There was a three-second pause on the line.
“Are you inside the house?” Gabe asked.
“I’m ten minutes out on Route 114.”
“Listen to me carefully, Adrian,” Gabe said, his voice dropping into a professional cadence. “Do not go in there like a wrecking ball. If she’s set up a legal paper trail, any physical confrontation or screaming match will be documented by her team as domestic volatility. They’ll use it to claim the environment is unsafe for both the baby and the mother.”
“She just pulled my wife by her hair onto the floor, Gabe,” Adrian said, his fingers white on the leather wheel.
“Did the camera catch it?”
“Yes. Full audio and video, timestamped, stored on a private cloud server she doesn't know exists.”
“Good,” Gabe said. “Then you hold the high ground. I’m calling a private medical team I trust—a physician who handles corporate forensic toxicology. We’ll be at your gate in fifteen minutes. Do not confront her until we have the blood draw from Lydia and the water sample secured. Do you understand me?”
Adrian looked at the dashboard screen.
May you like
Lydia was sitting on the floor beside the crib, her head resting against the wooden slats, her eyes half-closed as she reached through the bars to hold Miles’s tiny hand. Evelyn was seated in the corner armchair, reading a leather-bound book under the low lamp, as calm and composed as a judge waiting for a court session to open.
“Ten minutes, Gabe,” Adrian said. “Not a second more.”
