Chương 9
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Forever?”
“No.”
“Then when did your dead daughter come back to life?”
“Stop.”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
“You agreed to erase her.”
“I was protecting her.”
“From whom?”
“The investigation.”
His answer was almost a shout.
Then he began speaking too fast.
“They were going to take her away, okay?”
“Who?”
“DCFS.”
“Why?”
“Because Victoria made mistakes.”
“What mistakes?”
“She grabbed Chloe too hard.”
“That leaves bruises on wrists and ankles?”
“It got out of control.”
“What got out of control?”
“I can’t do this.”
“Then tell the detectives.”
“You think they care about context?”
“I think Chloe does.”
The line went silent again.
When Julian spoke, his voice sounded exhausted.
“I love her.”
I believed him.
That was the worst part.
I believed my son loved his daughter and had still helped do this to her.
“Love was supposed to make you stop.”
He breathed in sharply.
“Mom.”
“Love that only makes you feel bad afterward isn’t protection.”
Someone in the background told him the call was over.
“Please don’t let them take her somewhere with strangers.”
The plea struck precisely where he intended.
“I’m going to ask for her.”
“Good.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m helping you.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Mom, please tell her I’m sorry.”
I looked through the glass at Chloe.
“No.”
“What?”
“You tell the police what happened.”
“You tell them everything.”
“I said I will.”
“Then someday, if she wants to hear from you, that will be her decision.”
His breath caught.
“You can’t decide that.”
“No.”
I looked at Renee returning down the hallway.
“I think that may be the first thing tonight we agree on.”
The call ended.
Morales came toward me immediately.
“We need to preserve that conversation as accurately as possible.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean I need you to tell me what he said while it’s fresh.”
“I heard her.”
Margaret raised her hand slightly.
Morales looked at her.
“You heard both sides?”
“Most of it.”
He nodded.
“I’ll need a statement.”
Renee stopped beside us.
Her expression had tightened.
“There’s been a development.”
I had begun to hate that sentence too.
“What now?”
“Police located Victoria’s vehicle.”
“Where?”
“At O’Hare.”
My first thought was that she had fled.
Then Renee added, “She wasn’t in it.”
Morales’s phone rang before I could ask anything else.
He answered, listened, and looked directly at Renee.
“What?”
I said it too loudly.
Morales ended the call.
“Mrs. Mercer purchased a ticket tonight.”
“To where?”
“Phoenix.”
“Her parents.”
“She never boarded.”
Margaret frowned.
“Then where is she?”
Morales looked toward Chloe’s room.
“That’s what they’re trying to determine.”
Renee’s own phone vibrated.
She read the message and drew a slow breath.
“Rosa is with detectives now.”
“Is she safe?”
“Yes.”
“What are the pictures?”
Renee hesitated.
“Some are photographs she took inside Julian and Victoria’s house.”
“Of Chloe?”
“Yes.”
“What do they show?”
“She says she began taking them after she found Chloe locked in the basement utility room three weeks ago.”
I gripped the back of a chair.
“That room doesn’t have a window.”
“I know.”
“How long was she in there?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Renee continued before I could speak.
“Rosa also photographed medication bottles.”
“Kaminski’s?”
“No.”
The hallway seemed suddenly colder.
“The labels had Victoria’s name on them.”
“For what?”
“Several prescriptions.”
“Was the blue medicine one of them?”
“They’re working on that.”
Renee looked at Morales.
“There’s more.”
He already seemed to know.
I hated watching adults exchange information around me as if I were both essential and dangerous.
“Tell me.”
Renee lowered her voice.
“Rosa says Victoria discovered the photographs two days ago.”
My mouth went dry.
“What happened?”
“She threatened to report Rosa for theft and immigration violations if she spoke to anyone.”
“Can she do that?”
“Whether the threat was truthful isn’t the point.”
Renee looked toward Chloe.
“Rosa says that same night, she overheard Victoria tell Julian they had forty-eight hours before someone from the school district came to the house.”
I stared at her.
The funeral had not been arranged after Chloe supposedly died.
It had been the plan for the deadline.
Renee must have seen the conclusion reach me.
“She also heard Victoria say one other thing.”
“What?”
“That after Chloe was officially gone, no one would be looking for bruises anymore.”
For a moment, none of us spoke.
The hospital corridor kept moving around us as though the sentence had not changed the shape of the world.
A nurse pushed a supply cart past.
Someone laughed softly at the far end of the hall.
A phone rang twice and stopped.
I stared at Renee.
“She said that?”
“That is what Rosa reported.”
“Exactly?”
“That is how it was relayed to me.”
Margaret covered her mouth.
I looked through the glass at Chloe.
She was asleep on her side now, one hand tucked beneath her cheek.
The red mark around her wrist was visible above the hospital bracelet.
I could not make myself look away.
“What happens to Julian now?”
Morales shifted his weight.
“Detectives will determine charges with prosecutors.”
“He admitted he knew she was alive.”
“He made statements that are significant.”
“That sounds like a sentence designed not to answer.”
“It is.”
I almost admired him for admitting it.
Renee checked her phone again.
“There is something else detectives will need from you.”
“What?”
“Access to family communications if you have them.”
“You mean texts?”
“Texts, emails, photographs, anything that establishes the timeline of Chloe’s isolation.”
I unlocked my phone.
There were months of messages from Julian.
Pictures of Chloe at first.
Then fewer.
Then explanations.
She’s napping.
She’s having a rough day.
She doesn’t want to talk.
The pediatrician says not to push her.
At the time they had seemed like separate moments.
Together they formed a wall.
I scrolled back farther.
May you like
There was a photograph from March of Chloe sitting at the kitchen table holding a paper crown.
Her smile looked natural.
