Chapter 6: The Version He Was Already Telling
I called the police the next morning at eight o’clock, while Audrey was still asleep and Scott was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee he hadn’t touched.
The officer who came to the house was a woman named Detective Hargrove.
She was calm and unhurried in a way that made me feel like she had done this many times and knew how to hold the weight of it without dropping it on us.
She sat across from us in the living room, notepad open, and listened to everything.
When I finished, she asked to speak with Audrey alone, with Scott and me outside the door.
We stood in the hallway for forty minutes.
When Detective Hargrove came out, she said, “Your daughter was very clear.
Very detailed.” She paused.
“I want you to know she did everything right by talking to you when she did.”
“What happens now?” Scott asked.
“We’ll need her phone records and yours.
Derek’s as well — which we’ll subpoena if he doesn’t cooperate.” She looked at me.
“Has he made contact since last night?”
“Two texts,” I said.
I showed her the screen.
She photographed them both.
Then she looked up.
“Mrs.
Callahan, I want to be transparent with you.
He hasn’t broken any laws yet in a technical sense — there’s been no physical contact that your daughter has described.
But the pattern of communication with a minor, the grooming behavior, the deliberate deception of the parents — that builds a case.” She closed her notepad.
“It also means he may try to get ahead of this.
Establish his own version of events before you can establish yours.”
I thought of Derek’s message the night before.
*Scott already knows some of this.*
“He’s already started,” I said.
She nodded.
“People like this usually do.”
She left us with her card and told us not to contact Derek directly.
By noon, I understood what she had meant.
Scott’s phone rang at 12:17.
He looked at the screen and his face went still.
“It’s my mother,” he said.
He answered it.
I watched his face as he listened.
“Mom, that’s not—” A pause.
“No.
Where did you hear that?” Another pause, longer.
“Who told you Derek said that?”
He put the call on speaker.
His mother’s voice came through, tight and upset.
“His wife called me this morning, Scott.
Cheryl called me personally.
She said Linda has been making accusations about Derek that aren’t true.
She said Linda followed Audrey to the studio because she’s been paranoid for months and she’s trying to cause problems between you and Derek.”
I sat very still.
“She said Derek is devastated.
That he’s been nothing but kind to that girl and now your wife is trying to ruin his reputation.”
Scott looked at me.
“Mom,” he said quietly.
“Stop.
Please stop and listen to me.”
“Cheryl was in tears, Scott.
Actual tears—”
“Derek has been texting our sixteen-year-old daughter, telling her not to tell us, and coaching her on what to say if we found out.” His voice was steady.
Harder than I had heard it in years.
“We spoke to the police this morning.
So before you repeat anything else Cheryl told you, I need you to understand that what Derek is doing right now is called getting his story out first.”
Silence on the line.
“Is Audrey all right?” his mother finally said.
“She will be,” Scott said.
“But I need you to not repeat what Cheryl told you to anyone else.
Not a word.
Can you do that?”
A long pause.
“Yes,” she said softly.
“I’m sorry.
I didn’t know.”
Scott ended the call.
He set the phone down on the table and pressed both hands flat against the surface.
“He’s already called Cheryl,” I said.
“He’s already given her the story to tell.”
“Yes.”
“Which means he’s probably called others.”
Scott looked up.
“How many people do you think he’s already talked to?”
I didn’t answer.
Because the answer was: enough to make this harder than it should have been.
My own phone buzzed.
A text from a number I didn’t recognize.
*You should know what your husband and Derek used to get up to before you came along.
There are things about Scott you don’t know either.
Back off, or they come out.*
I read it twice.
Then I took a screenshot, forwarded it to Detective Hargrove, and put my phone face-down on the table.
Scott was watching me.
“What was it?” he asked.
“A threat,” I said.
“Someone warning me to back off.”
“From Derek?”
“Unknown number.” I looked at my husband.
“It doesn’t matter.
We’re not backing off.”
He nodded slowly.
But something shifted behind his eyes when I said the words — *things about Scott you don’t know* — and he looked away before I could read it.
