Chương 11
She also recommended not accessing shared accounts until they could document what existed.
Emily felt suddenly angry.
“My whole life is in those accounts.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
The words came too fast.
Tasha did not flinch.
Emily wanted to take them back.
She did not.
“My photos are there.”
“Yes.”
“School stuff.”
“Yes.”
“Bills.”
“Yes.”
“My work email.”
“That one may need separate handling.”
Emily laughed sharply.
“Great.”
Noah looked at her.
She covered her mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
Tasha leaned back slightly.
“You don’t have to apologize to me.”
The sentence irritated Emily.
Everyone kept giving her permission she had not asked for.
She looked toward the wall.
A television mounted near the ceiling played a cooking show with subtitles.
Someone was making pie.
The host smiled while folding dough.
Emily stared at it for several seconds.
Then she said, “He’ll freeze the money.”
Tasha was quiet.
“He’ll move it.”
“That’s possible.”
“He’ll say I kidnapped Noah.”
Morales, still near the curtain, looked up.
“That’s why we document tonight.”
Emily turned toward him.
“Can he?”
“Can he say it?”
“Yes.”
“Can he make it true?”
“No.”
“That’s not what people hear.”
Morales did not argue.
Emily appreciated that.
Daniel had always been good at first impressions.
Dependable Daniel.
Funny Daniel.
Daniel who remembered neighbors’ trash days and helped people jump dead batteries.
Daniel who coached Noah’s recreational baseball team for one spring and remembered every child’s batting order.
Emily imagined him calling people from jail.
Or tomorrow.
Or whenever they let him out.
She could already hear his voice.
Emily had a breakdown.
Emily misunderstood.
Emily attacked him.
Stallone assaulted him.
The medications were hers.
The policies were normal.
Everything could be explained.
Daniel loved explanations.
Noah finished his juice.
He flattened the empty box between his palms.
“Mom?”
Emily looked at him.
“If he lies, do people believe him?”
She wanted to give a clean answer.
She had no clean answers left.
“Some might.”
Noah looked at the crushed juice box.
“Then what?”
Emily glanced at Morales.
The detective did not rescue her.
Neither did Tasha.
For the first time all night, Emily understood why that mattered.
This part had to belong to her.
“We tell the truth anyway.”
Noah studied her.
“What if it doesn’t work?”
Emily looked down at their hospital bracelets.
At the bruises darkening along her wrists.
At his scraped knuckle.
She had spent years choosing whatever reduced Daniel’s anger in the next ten minutes.
That strategy had eventually put both of them on a kitchen floor.
“Then we keep telling it.”
Noah nodded once.
His face did not brighten.
He did not suddenly become brave.
He simply stopped crushing the juice box.
Tasha began explaining temporary housing resources.
Emily listened.
She asked practical questions.
Distance from Noah’s school.
Whether Daniel could obtain the address.
How long they could stay.
Whether she could go to work.
Whether pets were allowed, then remembered they did not have a pet.
The question had come from somewhere else.
Tasha answered without making her feel foolish.
Morales stepped outside to take another call.
When he returned, his expression had changed again.
Emily saw it immediately.
“What now?”
He looked at Tasha, then Dr. Patel, then Emily.
“The preliminary toxicology screen came back.”
Noah sat straighter.
Emily felt her pulse in her bruised throat.
Morales pulled his chair closer.
“Both you and Noah tested positive for a sedative.”
Emily gripped the blanket.
“What kind?”
Morales named a prescription sleep medication.
Emily had heard of it.
She had never taken it.
Noah looked confused.
“Is that bad?”
Dr. Patel answered carefully.
“It can make people very sleepy, especially someone your size.”
Emily stared at Morales.
“Daniel doesn’t have a prescription for that.”
“We’re checking.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“I know what he takes.”
Morales waited.
“He has blood pressure medication.”
“Anyone else in the house?”
“No.”
“Any old prescriptions?”
“No.”
Emily stopped.
A memory surfaced.
Carol.
Christmas.
A pill bottle on Carol’s kitchen counter beside a mug of tea.
Carol complaining she had finally found something that helped her sleep.
Emily looked at Morales.
“His mother.”
The detective’s pen appeared again.
“What about her?”
“She takes something for insomnia.”
“Do you know the name?”
“No.”
Noah looked between them.
Emily felt cold spread through her chest.
Her phone had rung twice the moment they reached the hospital.
Carol had called before Emily had spoken to anyone in the family.
Maybe Daniel had reached her.
Maybe he had not.
Maybe Carol knew nothing.
Maybe she knew everything.
Emily forced herself not to choose an answer before evidence existed.
Morales seemed to be doing the same.
“Do you know if Daniel visited her recently?”
Emily thought.
“He went there Sunday.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Most of the afternoon.”
Morales wrote it down.
Emily watched the pen move.
A few minutes earlier, she had thought Daniel was the entire problem.
Now the boundary around the problem had become uncertain again.
Her phone began ringing from the plastic bin outside the treatment bay.
Noah looked toward the sound.
Emily did not need to see the screen this time.
She already knew who was calling.
The ringing stopped before anyone reached for the phone.
Emily kept her eyes on the curtain.
A few seconds later, a nurse stepped inside holding the evidence bag.
“It’s the same caller.”
Emily nodded.
“Can I see the screen?”
The nurse held the bag up.
Carol Carter’s name glowed above a photograph taken at Noah’s eighth birthday party.
Carol was smiling beside a chocolate cake while Daniel leaned into the edge of the frame.
Emily had taken the picture.
Her thumb had probably been over the lens for the first attempt.
Noah stared at the photograph too.
“Why does Grandma keep calling?”
Emily looked at Morales.
The detective did not answer for her.
“I don’t know.”
Noah’s shoulders tightened.
“You keep saying that.”
“I know.”
“Do you know anything?”
May you like
The question was sharper than he intended.
Emily felt herself recoil anyway.
