Chương 2
“That is not a legal defense.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing useful.”
“That, I believe.”
She pulled a chair closer.
“You cannot go back there tonight.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“You cannot call them.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“You cannot send anybody to frighten them.”
Vincent looked toward Marco.
Marco suddenly became interested in a vending machine.
Teresa pointed at Vincent.
“That includes men who become frightening merely by standing somewhere.”
“I know what a bodyguard is, Teresa.”
“Then act like a grandfather with excellent legal representation instead of a man trying to reenact 1987.”
Vincent glanced down at Lily.
Her cheek was pressed against his shirt.
“I wasn’t this old in 1987.”
“You were already old.”
A small sound escaped Marco before he could stop it.
Vincent looked at him.
Marco coughed.
Teresa opened a leather folder.
“The hospital report will trigger an investigation.”
“Good.”
“Maybe.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“What does that mean?”
“It means systems are systems.”
She lowered her voice.
“Your son is her legal father.”
“He put her outside.”
“And you assaulted him.”
“He attacked me.”
“Then we establish that with evidence, not volume.”
Vincent leaned back.
The movement woke Lily slightly.
Her fingers tightened on his shirt.
He immediately stopped moving.
Teresa noticed.
Her voice softened.
“Where is her mother?”
Vincent stared at her.
The question had been sitting in the room since they arrived.
It had been sitting in his life for almost two years.
“Dead,” he said.
Teresa did not write anything.
Lily’s biological mother, Caroline, had died when Lily was fourteen months old.
A highway collision outside Albany.
Rain.
A delivery truck.
One phone call at 2:13 in the morning.
Vincent remembered the time because grief had turned the glowing numbers on his bedside clock into something permanent.
His son Daniel had remarried nine months later.
Vincent had hated him for the speed of it.
Then he had hated himself for judging how another person survived grief.
Those two feelings had never settled their argument.
“What happened between you and Daniel?” Teresa asked.
“You know.”
“I know your version.”
Vincent looked at her.
“That’s the one I have.”
“Eleven months without seeing your granddaughter does not happen because two men disagree about Christmas.”
“It wasn’t Christmas.”
“Fine.”
“Thanksgiving.”
Teresa stared at him.
Vincent sighed.
Daniel had accused him of interfering with the marriage.
Vincent had accused Daniel’s new wife, Rebecca, of treating Lily like an inconvenience.
Voices rose.
Old grievances crawled out from places where both men had pretended to bury them.
Daniel told his father that money did not give him authority over everyone.
Vincent told Daniel that adulthood did not begin merely because someone turned thirty-eight.
Then Daniel asked him to leave.
Vincent did.
His mistake came afterward.
He waited for Daniel to apologize.
Daniel waited too.
Eleven months passed.
Pride was efficient that way.
It could turn a holiday argument into almost a year of a child’s life.
Teresa tapped her pen against the folder.
“You tried calling?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“At first?”
“Yes.”
“Too many.”
“And later?”
“Not enough.”
That answer silenced her.
Vincent looked at the sleeping child in his arms.
“She grew.”
Teresa said nothing.
“I missed it.”
His voice had become nearly inaudible.
“I missed eleven months because I needed my son to admit he was wrong.”
Lily moved in her sleep and tucked her face more deeply against him.
Vincent closed his eyes briefly.
Teresa let the silence remain.
Outside the emergency room curtain, a machine beeped steadily.
Somewhere down the hallway, a child complained loudly about wanting French fries.
A nurse laughed.
A janitor pushed a gray cart past the opening.
Ordinary life kept moving around them, indifferent to Vincent’s private accounting.
His phone vibrated.
Marco looked at the screen first.
“Daniel.”
Vincent stared at the device.
It stopped ringing.
A second later it rang again.
Teresa held out her hand.
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
“Vincent.”
He answered.
For several seconds there was only breathing.
Then Daniel said, “Where is my daughter?”
Vincent looked down at Lily.
“Safe.”
“You kidnapped her.”
The word landed differently than Vincent expected.
Not because it frightened him.
Because Daniel sounded frightened.
“Daniel.”
“You took her from my property after attacking me and my wife.”
“You left your three-year-old in a snowstorm.”
“She was on the porch.”
“The part outside the locked door.”
“You don’t know what happened.”
“I know what I saw.”
“No, you saw the end.”
Vincent became still.
Across from him, Teresa noticed immediately.
“What does that mean?” Vincent asked.
Daniel breathed through his nose.
“You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“You show up at the last second and decide you understand everybody.”
Vincent looked at Teresa.
She leaned closer to the phone.
“Tell me what happened before I arrived.”
Daniel said nothing.
“Daniel.”
“She ran outside.”
Vincent waited.
“She was having a tantrum.”
“In snow?”
“She opened the door herself.”
“And Rebecca locked it?”
Another silence.
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“Did she?”
“I was handling it.”
“That is not an answer.”
“She was supposed to be outside for a minute.”
“A minute.”
“Yes.”
“How long was it?”
“I don’t know.”
Vincent looked at the hospital clock.
For the first time that night, anger gave way to something colder.
Not certainty.
Uncertainty.
Daniel was defensive, but underneath it Vincent heard something else.
Confusion.
Maybe shame.
Maybe fear.
Maybe both.
“Why is Lily afraid of doctors?” Vincent asked.
Daniel stopped breathing for a beat.
Teresa’s eyes lifted.
Vincent continued.
“Why does she have bruises on her ribs?”
“What?”
The answer came too quickly to sound prepared.
Vincent listened.
“What bruises?”
Daniel asked again.
Vincent looked at Teresa.
She made a small motion telling him not to reveal more.
“We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“No, we’ll talk now.”
“Not tonight.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“For once, Daniel, I’m going to let people whose job is protecting children decide what happens next.”
May you like
The line went quiet.
Then Daniel spoke in a voice Vincent had not heard since Caroline died.
