3. The director's protocol
I was sitting in the locked car, hyperventilating, with my hands gripping the steering wheel as I stared at the closed front door of my house.
The minutes dragged on with agonizing, suffocating slowness. Ten minutes felt like ten hours. I didn't know what was happening inside me. I was afraid Marcus would hurt her. He was twice her size, athletic, and prone to erupting in a violent, explosive rage when provoked.
But I knew my mother.
Martha had retired five years earlier. When Marcus and I started dating, he asked her what she did for a living. She vaguely mentioned working in the civil service, leaving him wondering whether she was a low-level clerk or a librarian. Marcus, completely indifferent to anyone who didn't earn a six-figure salary, never pressed the issue.
He didn't know the truth.
He was unaware that, for twenty years, Martha Hayes had been the deputy director of operations at Blackgate State Penitentiary, a maximum security facility that housed the most violent, dangerous, and manipulative predators in the country.
He had managed to provoke large-scale prison riots. He had negotiated face-to-face with cartel leaders who held knives to their throats. He had dedicated two decades to breaking the will of serial killers, gang leaders, and sociopaths who believed they ruled the world.
A corporate thug, dressed in a custom-made cashmere sweater and throwing a tantrum in the living room of a house in the suburbs, was for her a mild warm-up exercise.
(According to my best friend, Sarah, who was frozen on the sofa, the moment the front door closed behind me, Martha's posture changed completely.)
Martha didn't scream. She didn't argue with him. She completely ignored his aggressive behavior.
She turned her back on Marcus, walked quietly into the kitchen, and locked the heavy back door that led to the patio. Then she returned to the foyer, locked the heavy oak front door, bolted it, and calmly slipped the keys into the deep pocket of her cardigan.
"What the hell are you doing?" Marcus demanded, taking a heavy, menacing step toward her, his fists clenched. "Give me those keys! I'm going to find my wife!"
Martha didn't back down. She remained completely still, taking her smartphone out of her purse. She didn't dial 911. She pressed a pre-programmed speed dial number.
“I’ve spent two decades dealing with the most violent, manipulative, and narcissistic predators in the state,” Martha said. Her voice was eerily calm when the phone rang. She looked Marcus straight in the eye, shattering any illusion of power he might have had. “They all thought they were untouchable, Marcus. They all thought their money, their gangs, or their physical strength made them gods. Just like you.”
"You're crazy!" Marcus growled, pointing his finger at her. "I'm going to have you arrested for breaking and entering! I'm going to destroy you!"
Martha picked up the phone as the connection was being established.
"Captain Miller?" Martha asked in a high-pitched, professional voice that radiated absolute authority. "That's Director Hayes."
There was a brief pause on the other end of the line when the police captain recognized the voice of the woman who had framed him decades earlier.
“I have an ongoing investigation (code 10-35) at my daughter’s home,” Martha said clinically, using police code ten for an ongoing felony. “The address is 4421 Oakwood Drive. The suspect has explicitly confessed to aggravated assault against a pregnant woman in front of fifteen civilian witnesses. The victim has been safely removed from the residence. I currently have the suspect in custody and confined to the primary residence.”
Marcus's arrogant smile vanished. Blood began to rush to his face when he realized she wasn't calling 911; she was speaking directly to her superiors.
"Send the team, Miller," Martha ordered. "And tell them to bring the heavy handcuffs. He might try to escape."
