Chương 7
He was going to need the truth to survive every version of what had happened.
The next morning, Christopher sat in a plastic chair beside Emma’s hospital bed and watched sunlight move across the floor without touching his coffee.
Rebecca had gone downstairs to find something Emma might actually eat, because the girl had rejected oatmeal, eggs, toast, and a banana with the solemn disgust of someone personally betrayed by hospital food.
Emma was awake but quiet.
A cartoon played on the television with the volume low.
She had asked for it and then barely looked at it.
Christopher’s phone vibrated against his thigh.
He checked the screen.
Lena Ortiz.
He stepped into the hallway before answering.
“We found something,” Ortiz said.
Christopher braced one hand against the wall.
“What?”
“The rear-hall camera.”
His breathing stopped for half a beat.
“I thought it only caught part of the courtyard.”
“It does.”
“Does it show the pool?”
“Not enough.”
Disappointment landed hard.
Ortiz continued.
“But it shows the French doors and about twelve feet of deck beyond them.”
Christopher waited.
“At 2:14 p.m., your daughter walks out carrying a small pool skimmer.”
He closed his eyes.
Emma had said Juliette told her to clear the petals.
“At 2:16, Mrs. Vale follows her.”
“What happens after that?”
“They move outside the camera’s view.”
Christopher tightened his grip on the phone.
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“No.”
Ortiz did not pretend otherwise.
“Then at 2:18, Nina Alvarez enters the rear hall carrying folded linens.”
Christopher pictured Nina’s frightened face.
“She stops at the doors.”
“For how long?”
“Sixteen seconds.”
“What is she looking at?”
“We can’t see her eyeline clearly enough to say.”
“But she’s looking outside.”
“Probably.”
“Then?”
“She drops the linens.”
Christopher stared at the floor.
“She dropped them?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“That’s one of the questions.”
“What happens next?”
“Nina runs outside.”
Christopher’s pulse accelerated.
“Then?”
“Teresa appears thirty-three seconds later.”
“From where?”
“Kitchen corridor.”
“And Juliette?”
“Not visible.”
“Emma?”
“Not visible.”
Ortiz paused.
“At 2:19 and eleven seconds, Nina comes back into frame.”
“With Emma?”
“No.”
Christopher’s mouth went dry.
“What is she doing?”
“She’s backing toward the doors.”
“Backing?”
“As if she’s still looking at something outside.”
Christopher pressed his thumb into the wall hard enough to blanch the skin.
“And then?”
“She turns toward the house, appears to shout, and runs back out.”
Christopher tried to reconstruct the sequence.
Nina sees something.
Drops linens.
Runs outside.
Returns.
Shouts.
Runs out again.
“What does she say she saw?”
Ortiz did not answer immediately.
“Her second interview is different from her first.”
Christopher straightened.
“How?”
“She initially said she saw Juliette standing near Emma while Emma struggled at the edge.”
“That’s what she told me.”
“Yes.”
“In the second interview, she said she saw Juliette’s foot on Emma’s hand.”
Christopher felt the hallway narrow.
“Why didn’t she say that the first time?”
“Fear.”
“Of Juliette?”
“That’s what she says.”
Christopher looked through the glass toward Emma’s bed.
The girl had pulled the blanket over her knees and was examining the adhesive from an old monitor sticker.
“Do you believe her?”
“I don’t decide things that way.”
“Everybody decides things that way.”
“Not if they want the case to survive.”
He hated her answer because it was correct.
Ortiz continued.
“Nina also says Juliette told her afterward that Emma had slipped and that everyone needed to be careful about exaggerating what they thought they saw.”
Christopher’s jaw tightened.
“That sounds like witness intimidation.”
“It can sound like several things.”
“Detective.”
“I’m telling you not to run ahead of the evidence.”
Christopher lowered his voice.
“My daughter said she was pushed.”
“I know.”
“And a witness says Juliette stepped on her hand.”
“I know.”
“And you still haven’t arrested her.”
Ortiz was quiet for a moment.
Then she said, “There is a complication.”
Christopher stared down the corridor.
A janitor was methodically replacing a trash-can liner fifty feet away.
“What complication?”
“Juliette is pregnant.”
The words felt different when spoken by someone who had verified them.
“How far?”
“Approximately nine weeks, according to information she provided.”
Christopher shut his eyes.
Emma had been telling the truth about that too.
“That changes nothing.”
“Legally, no.”
“Then why are you calling it a complication?”
“Because she says the pregnancy is part of her explanation for what happened.”
Christopher opened his eyes.
“What explanation?”
“She says she became dizzy near the pool.”
He almost laughed.
“She was dizzy, so Emma went into the water?”
“Her claim is that Emma had leaned too far while collecting petals, Juliette reached for her, lost balance, and accidentally pushed her instead of pulling her back.”
Christopher said nothing.
Ortiz continued.
“She says she then tried to help Emma out, but Emma panicked and grabbed at her bracelet.”
“The bracelet wasn’t broken.”
“We noted that.”
“She wasn’t wet.”
“We noted that too.”
“And the mark on Emma’s hand?”
“She denies stepping on it intentionally.”
“Intentionally.”
Christopher heard the word.
Ortiz heard him hear it.
“She says she may have stepped on Emma’s hand while trying to stabilize herself.”
“And then stood there while Emma drowned?”
“She says Emma was never drowning.”
Christopher’s voice sharpened.
“I pulled her out coughing water.”
“She says Emma is a competent swimmer and that the situation escalated only when the child panicked.”
Christopher turned away from the hospital room.
For several seconds he could not speak.
Ortiz said, “There’s more.”
“Of course there is.”
“We recovered fragments of the pitcher Teresa mentioned.”
“Where?”
“In an outdoor trash bin beside the service entrance.”
Christopher frowned.
“Why would it be there?”
“Someone swept it up before officers arrived.”
His stomach sank.
“I told Teresa not to clean anything.”
“She says she didn’t.”
“Then who did?”
“A staff member named Marisol.”
Christopher knew the name.
Marisol worked afternoons and normally handled upstairs rooms.
“She wasn’t at the pool.”
“No.”
“Why would she clean broken glass outside?”
“She says Juliette told her to.”
Christopher went still.
May you like
“When?”
“Before you came outside.”
