Chương 5
Victoria’s jaw tightened.
“That’s all I can say right now.”
Emma nodded once.
It was not forgiveness.
Victoria seemed to understand.
Dr. Lewis walked her out through the side entrance.
Daniel watched the car leave.
Then he closed the door.
Alexander stood in the family room holding Noah.
“What do we do now?”
It was the first question Emma had ever heard him ask without expecting someone else to already know the answer.
Daniel answered first.
“We call your attorney.”
Emma stood.
“And the police.”
Alexander looked at her.
Daniel stopped.
Emma felt her heartbeat in her cheek.
Alexander said, “Emma.”
“She pushed a baby toward stairs.”
“I know what happened.”
“You asked what we do.”
“I’m not trying to hide it.”
“Then we call.”
He looked toward the hallway where Victoria had disappeared.
Emma saw the conflict immediately.
It was one thing to stop your wife’s hand.
Another to turn what she had done into a record that could not be privately managed.
Alexander Hale had spent his adult life solving problems through control. Lawyers. Contracts. Settlements. Quiet calls. People who knew people.
Emma had spent hers knowing what happened to those without control when wealthy families decided something should remain quiet.
Daniel looked at Alexander.
“She’s right.”
Alexander rubbed Noah’s back.
His face seemed to age in the silence.
Then he took out his phone.
“I’ll call.”
“No.”
Alexander looked at Emma.
She surprised herself.
“I will.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m the witness.”
His eyes stayed on hers.
Emma’s hands had started trembling again.
She did not hide them.
“And because I almost didn’t tell you before.”
Alexander nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
She made the call.
The officer who arrived twenty-five minutes later was polite and unimpressed by marble.
His name was Officer Martinez. He was accompanied by a younger woman named Officer Bell.
Emma appreciated that neither of them reacted to the house the way visitors sometimes did.
No staring at the chandelier.
No joke about getting lost between rooms.
Martinez asked to speak with Emma first.
They sat in the breakfast room.
Emma told him what happened.
Then she told him about the earlier shouting.
Then the mattress.
Then the day she had moved Victoria’s arm.
She did not exaggerate.
When Martinez asked whether Victoria had ever threatened Noah before, Emma said no.
When he asked whether Victoria had seemed intoxicated, Emma said she did not know.
When he asked whether she believed Victoria intended for the bassinet to go down the stairs, Emma looked at the table for several seconds.
“I saw her push it.”
“That’s not exactly what I asked.”
“I know.”
“Do you believe she intended it to fall?”
Emma thought about Victoria’s face.
Move.
Maybe one fall will finally teach him to stop crying.
“Yes.”
Martinez wrote something.
“Did anyone else hear her say that?”
“No.”
“Mr. Hale?”
“He came in after.”
“Mr. Cross?”
“After.”
“Cameras?”
Emma almost smiled.
Of course.
The house had cameras everywhere outside: gate, driveway, pool, service entrance, garage.
Inside, Alexander had refused them.
Victoria had once joked that she would not live in a casino.
“No interior cameras.”
Martinez nodded.
“Any audio devices? Baby monitor?”
Emma froze.
The monitor.
Noah’s nursery monitor traveled with a small parent unit that could display video and sound. It was usually upstairs on its charging base.
But that morning Emma had brought it down because Noah had been napping in the family room before Victoria told her to move him.
“Maybe.”
Martinez looked up.
“Maybe what?”
“The baby monitor.”
“Was it recording?”
“I don’t know.”
Emma did not let herself feel hope.
She knew enough about devices to know that a monitor was not magic. Sometimes it streamed. Sometimes it stored clips. Sometimes nothing was saved unless a feature had been enabled.
“Where is it?”
She stood.
Then stopped.
“Victoria took it upstairs yesterday.”
Martinez watched her.
“Why?”
“She said the light bothered her at night.”
“Where upstairs?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer would matter.
For the next hour, nothing became simpler.
The baby monitor was found in a drawer in Victoria’s dressing room, unplugged.
Its app had not been configured for cloud recording.
There was no miraculous video.
The foyer floor had two fresh dark scrape marks where the bassinet wheels had twisted near the stair edge, but they did not prove who had pushed it.
Emma’s cheek was photographed.
Daniel gave a statement describing what he saw after entering.
Alexander did the same.
Mrs. Alvarez admitted she had heard Victoria shouting at Noah twice in the previous month but had not seen anything physical.
When the officers left, they took statements and the information for Dr. Lewis and the hospital.
They did not leave in handcuffs with anyone.
There was no cinematic ending.
There was paperwork.
Business cards.
A case number written in blue ink.
A request that Alexander arrange a safe place for Noah away from Victoria until more was known.
Emma stood in the foyer afterward, staring at the scrape near the stair.
The bassinet had been moved into a storage room.
The empty space looked larger without it.
Daniel came beside her.
“You should photograph that.”
“The police did.”
“For yourself.”
Emma looked at him.
He held up his hands.
“Not legal advice.”
She took the photograph.
Then another.
Daniel looked at her cheek.
“Photograph that too.”
“They did.”
“For yourself.”
Emma sighed.
“You’re very annoying.”
“I’m told that often.”
She used the front camera.
The handprint was beginning to darken.
She almost deleted the photo.
Then she saved it.
At one thirty, Alexander found Emma in the kitchen eating half a turkey sandwich Mrs. Alvarez had left under plastic wrap.
Noah was asleep upstairs with a temporary nurse Daniel had somehow found through an agency.
Emma had changed out of her uniform.
She wore jeans and a navy sweater she kept in her car.
The gray maid dress sat folded inside a grocery bag by her feet.
Alexander stood in the doorway.
“Are you leaving?”
May you like
“Yes.”
He nodded.
