My husband ripped my blanket off in the middle of the night sneering that I was just faking illness for attention, until his eyes locked on the dark bruises covering my legs and he heard me whisper please don’t let them take my baby.

I gasped for air, my throat raw, as my father dropped the frying pan and knelt beside me.

"Claire? Claire, are you okay?"

I nodded, unable to speak, still trying to catch my breath.

He pulled me into his arms, holding me tight. "I came home early. Emma forgot her favorite stuffed animal. I was going to drop it off and go back to the zoo. I saw the van in the driveway, and something didn't feel right. I came in through the back door."

He looked at Caleb, who was lying unconscious on the floor. "Is he...?"

"Alive, I think," I said, finally finding my voice. "We need to call the police. And Ryan. And my father—Emma. Is she okay?"

"She's fine," Richard said. "She's with David and Emily at the zoo. I told them I had to run an errand. She doesn't know anything."

He pulled out his phone and called 911. Then he called Ryan.

By the time the police and Ryan arrived, Caleb was starting to wake up. The officers cuffed him and read him his rights. He glared at me as they led him away, his eyes filled with pure hatred.

"This isn't over," he mouthed.

But it was over. For him, anyway.

Caleb was charged with attempted murder, kidnapping, assault, and weapons violations. With his prior record, he would be going back to prison for the rest of his life.

The notes made sense now. It had been Caleb all along. He had been planning this for months, maybe years. Biding his time, waiting for the right moment.

He had almost succeeded.

The police searched Caleb's apartment and found detailed plans of our house, our schedules, our routines. He had been watching us for a long time.

He had also kept a journal.

In it, he wrote about his hatred for me, for Ryan, for Emily, for everyone who had "betrayed" him. He wrote about his plans to destroy us, to make us suffer the way he had suffered.

But there was something else in the journal.

Something that made my blood run cold.

Caleb hadn't been working alone.

He had been in contact with someone. Someone who had been helping him. Someone who had given him information about our schedules, our security system, our routines.

The journal referred to this person only as "The Friend."

"Who is The Friend?" Captain Alvarez asked, going through the journal. "Caleb mentions him repeatedly. Says he couldn't have done any of this without him."

"Do you have any idea who it could be?" Ryan asked.

I thought about it. Who would still be loyal to Caleb? Who would still hate us enough to help him?

"Margaret," I said.

Captain Alvarez shook her head. "Margaret is in maximum security. No contact with the outside world. We checked. She hasn't had any visitors or phone calls in over a year."

"Daniel?"

"Same thing. Supermax. He's in solitary confinement twenty-three hours a day. He couldn't have helped Caleb."

"Then who?"

Captain Alvarez sighed. "We're going to find out. But in the meantime, I want you all to be extra careful. If there's someone else out there, someone who helped Caleb... they might try to finish what he started."

We increased security even more. We hired more guards. We installed a new, state-of-the-art security system. We changed our routines.

But we never found out who "The Friend" was.

Caleb refused to talk. He went to trial, was found guilty on all counts, and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He never said a word about who had helped him.

Months passed.

Life slowly returned to normal. Or as normal as it could be, knowing there was someone out there who hated us, someone who had helped Caleb, someone who was still free.

Emma was nine now. She was in fourth grade, loved playing the piano, and had recently decided she wanted to be a veterinarian when she grew up. She was happy, healthy, and completely unaware of how close we had come to losing everything.

I tried to be happy too.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. That there was still a threat out there. That we weren't as safe as we thought.

And then, I got the phone call.

It was from the prison.

"Mrs. Bennett?" the voice on the other end said. "This is Warden Miller at the Federal Correctional Institution. I'm calling about Margaret Whitmore."

My heart skipped a beat. "Is she okay?"

"She's dead, Mrs. Bennett," the warden said. "She passed away this morning. Heart attack. The doctors tried to save her, but it was too late."

I sat down heavily, the phone still in my hand.

Margaret was dead.

The woman who had tried to steal my baby, who had destroyed so many lives, who had been the architect of so much pain... she was gone.

"Are you sure?" I asked, stupidly.

"I'm sure," the warden said. "I'm sorry for your loss, Mrs. Bennett. I know she was your mother-in-law."

Loss.

I didn't feel loss. I felt... nothing. Empty. Numb.

Margaret had been such a huge, terrifying presence in my life for so long. And now she was just... gone.

I hung up the phone and called Ryan.

"Margaret is dead," I said.

He was quiet for a long moment. "I... I don't know what to say."

"Me neither," I said.

The funeral was small. Just a few distant relatives, some old family friends. Ryan and I went, mostly out of a sense of obligation. Emma didn't come. We didn't think she needed to be there.

Harrison didn't come either. He was still in prison, and he had refused to request a furlough. He sent word that Margaret had made her choices, and he had nothing to say to her, even in death.

The service was brief. The priest said kind words about a woman none of us had ever known. Margaret was buried in the family plot, beside generations of Whitmores.

As we walked away from the gravesite, Ryan squeezed my hand.

"It's really over now," he said. "All of it. Margaret, Daniel, Harrison, Caleb. They're all either dead or in prison for life. It's finally over."

I wanted to believe him. I really did.