Chương 11
Someone across the street had closed their blinds.
Someone else had opened theirs.
Beth came out a few minutes later.
She sat on the porch step.
Terrence remained standing.
For a while neither spoke.
Then Beth said, “I hated her husband before it was useful.”
Terrence looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
“It means now everybody gets to think I saw through him.”
She rubbed both palms over her face.
“I didn’t.”
“You had concerns.”
“I thought he was arrogant.”
“That’s not the same as this.”
“No.”
She watched a patrol officer carry another evidence box toward a van.
“I thought Laura liked being dramatic too much.”
Terrence said nothing.
Beth laughed without humor.
“That sounds awful out loud.”
“Probably sounded better in your head.”
She looked at him.
Then, unexpectedly, she smiled.
“You’ve been around Maya too long.”
Terrence sat on the opposite end of the step.
Beth picked at a loose thread on her raincoat.
“She called me in March.”
Terrence waited.
“She said Douglas was giving the girls supplements.”
“What kind?”
“She didn’t know.”
“Did she sound scared?”
“No.”
Beth shook her head.
“She sounded embarrassed.”
“That’s different.”
“Yeah.”
A patrol car pulled away from the curb.
Beth watched it go.
“She kept saying she probably misunderstood.”
Terrence looked toward the Sinclair house.
“People say that when they’re trying to make fear negotiable.”
Beth turned toward him.
“Is that from police training?”
“No.”
“Where’s it from?”
Terrence rubbed his thumb across a scratch in the porch paint.
“My sister.”
Beth did not ask more.
He appreciated that.
His phone vibrated.
Hospital.
Laura had arrived.
She was conscious but medically unstable enough to require admission.
Delilah continued improving.
Charlotte remained physically stable.
Child protective services had obtained emergency protective custody pending judicial review.
Terrence listened to the update.
Then came the part that changed the temperature of the evening again.
A toxicology screen from Delilah showed traces of two sedating medications.
One matched the pharmacy compound from that afternoon.
The other did not.
“How recent?”
The physician said they could not yet establish an exact administration time.
Terrence asked whether Laura’s toxicology had returned.
Not yet.
Then he asked about the twins’ blood work.
The doctor paused.
“There’s another concern.”
Terrence stood.
Beth looked up at him.
“What concern?”
The physician explained that both girls showed unusual laboratory abnormalities suggesting repeated medication exposure.
Nothing yet proved the source or duration.
Further testing was needed.
Terrence asked whether there was immediate danger.
The doctor said not from what they were seeing now.
But the pattern did not fit a single accidental dose.
Terrence thanked him and ended the call.
Beth stood too.
“What?”
“Delilah had more than one drug in her system.”
Beth’s face emptied.
“Today?”
“We don’t know.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means they’re still testing.”
She turned away.
Then she kicked the porch railing.
Hard.
Terrence flinched.
Beth grabbed her foot.
“Damn it.”
He almost smiled.
She glared at him.
“Don’t.”
“You kicked wood.”
“I noticed.”
“You want ice?”
“No.”
“Probably going to swell.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
They both looked through the front window at Douglas.
He sat motionless at the dining table while officers moved around him.
Beth said, “He’ll explain all of it.”
“What?”
“He always does.”
Terrence looked at her.
“He explains until people are too tired to keep arguing.”
She crossed her arms.
“Laura used to joke that marriage to Doug was like being cross-examined by a podcast.”
Terrence snorted before he could stop himself.
Beth looked ashamed for laughing.
Then angry at herself for being ashamed.
“He’s going to make her sound crazy.”
“Maybe.”
“He’s good at it.”
“That doesn’t make the records disappear.”
Beth looked toward the house.
“No.”
The evidence technician came to the porch.
“Officer Callahan.”
Terrence stood.
“We found something in the email archive.”
He followed the technician inside.
Park was already looking at a printed page.
The document was not medical.
It was a draft letter.
Laura had written it but apparently never sent it.
At the top was the name of Douglas’s former employer.
Below that was a detailed complaint.
She described finding medication samples in the house.
Finding handwritten dosing notes involving the twins.
Finding photographs of bruises on their thighs.
Finding calendar reminders labeled with initials rather than names.
One paragraph had been highlighted by the technician.
Terrence read it twice.
Douglas had allegedly asked Laura to bring the girls into the clinic after hours on three occasions before he lost privileges.
The draft said she had refused.
Park looked at Terrence.
“That clinic have cameras?”
“Probably.”
“Access logs?”
“Likely.”
She checked the dates.
“Get preservation requests moving tonight.”
The detective supervisor nodded.
Park read farther.
Then she stopped.
“What?”
Terrence asked.
She turned the page.
Laura had described confronting Douglas about a spreadsheet.
According to the letter, Douglas said he had discovered something significant about differential drug metabolism in genetically identical children.
He believed he could publish if he collected enough data.
Beth whispered, “Publish what?”
Park kept reading.
The letter said Laura accused him of experimenting on their daughters.
Douglas allegedly replied that no meaningful harm had occurred.
Then there was a sentence in quotation marks.
Terrence read it.
You only call it abuse because you don’t understand the value of the result.
Beth sat down hard in the nearest chair.
Douglas looked across the room.
His eyes moved from Beth to Park to the paper.
He did not ask what they had found.
He already knew.
Park folded the letter.
She gave it to the evidence technician.
Douglas said, “Anything Laura wrote while impaired is unreliable.”
Park looked at him.
“You invoked counsel.”
He pressed his lips together.
She turned away.
Terrence’s phone buzzed again.
This time it was an internal message from dispatch.
A woman had arrived at the station asking for Officer Callahan.
She identified herself as Rebecca Kane.
Terrence did not recognize the name.
Dispatch added one detail.
She was a pharmacist.
May you like
Terrence called immediately.
Rebecca answered on the second ring.
