Chương 7
“Possibly.”
That answer was not comforting, but at least it was real.
Elias finally spoke.
“You can stay here.”
Officer Reyes glanced at him.
He ignored her.
“No conditions.”
I looked at him.
“No security people following me?”
“If there is an active threat, I won’t agree to that.”
“There.”
“What?”
“A condition.”
He exhaled slowly.
“Fine.”
The nurse pretended to adjust Grace’s blanket.
Marcus stared at the ceiling.
Officer Reyes looked between us with the weary expression of someone watching two stubborn people discover each other.
Elias said, “No financial conditions.”
“That’s different.”
“It’s what I meant.”
“Then say what you mean.”
His eyes narrowed.
I expected anger.
Instead he nodded once.
“Fair.”
Something loosened in my chest.
Not trust.
Not yet.
But enough space for breath.
Officer Reyes’s phone buzzed.
She checked the screen.
Her expression changed.
“What is it?” I asked.
She did not answer immediately.
Then she looked at me.
“Patrol officers just went to Daniel’s apartment.”
“Why?”
“To preserve the scene and locate Owen and Peter.”
My heartbeat accelerated.
“Did they find them?”
“No.”
She looked at the screen again.
“The apartment is empty.”
I stared at her.
“Daniel was just downstairs.”
“I know.”
“His mother?”
“Gone.”
“His cousins?”
“Gone.”
Reyes slid the phone into her pocket.
“The place has been cleaned.”
I looked toward Marcus.
“The blood?”
Officer Reyes’s silence answered first.
“Most visible surfaces have been wiped down.”
My throat tightened.
I thought of the blanket under me.
The basin.
The towels.
The extension cord.
“Then there’s nothing.”
Reyes shook her head.
“Cleaning is not the same as erasing.”
Elias looked toward the windows, thinking.
Marcus did not.
He was already frowning at his phone.
Then he stopped.
“Wait.”
Reyes turned sharply.
“I told you not to—”
“I’m not searching.”
He looked at me.
“Ava, when Mr. Vance found you, you were wearing a brown coat.”
“Yes.”
“Was it yours?”
“No.”
“Whose?”
I tried to remember.
The overpass.
Snow.
Owen dragging me downstairs.
Something thrown after me.
A coat landing near my feet.
“Daniel’s mother.”
Marcus looked at Elias.
“The pockets weren’t inventoried.”
Officer Reyes’s attention snapped to him.
“Where is the coat?”
Marcus pointed toward the hallway.
“Stored with the clothing removed during treatment.”
Officer Reyes was already moving.
“Do not touch it.”
We all heard her open a closet.
A plastic garment bag rustled.
Then silence.
Long enough to become frightening.
Reyes returned carrying the bag by its sealed edge.
Through the clear plastic, I saw the brown coat.
One pocket bulged.
Something white protruded from the opening.
I knew what it was before anyone said a word.
The extension cord was still inside.
Officer Reyes did not let anyone come near the coat.
She set the garment bag on a chair, photographed it from several angles with her department phone, and called for an evidence technician.
I stared through the plastic at the white cord.
A smear of something brown marked one loop.
I knew exactly where it had rubbed my wrist.
The nurse followed my gaze and quietly pulled the blanket higher over me.
“Don’t look at it if you don’t want to.”
“I do.”
She glanced at me.
“I don’t.”
“I know.”
The difference mattered.
For the first time since waking, I was choosing which part of the horror I saw.
Officer Reyes crouched beside the chair without touching the bag.
“Are you certain this is the cord?”
“Yes.”
“Certain enough that you would testify to it?”
The word testify landed heavily.
I looked again.
“There was black tape near one end.”
Reyes leaned closer without disturbing anything.
A strip of electrical tape wrapped the cord just above the plug.
My stomach tightened.
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“That helps.”
Marcus remained near the doorway.
“How did it get into the coat?”
I closed my eyes.
The memory came in fragments.
Stairs.
Owen’s hand twisted in the back of my dress.
Daniel’s mother crying behind us.
Peter saying they were going too far.
Then the cord around my wrists was gone.
I remembered falling on the landing while Owen cursed because I had bled on his sleeve.
Something hit the wall.
The cord.
Peter picked it up.
“Peter.”
Reyes looked at me.
“What about him?”
“He took it.”
“After they untied you?”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“I don’t know.”
My breathing shortened.
“I remember Daniel’s mother throwing the coat at me.”
“Could Peter have put the cord in it?”
“Maybe.”
“Did you see him do that?”
“No.”
Reyes nodded.
“Then we keep maybe as maybe.”
I appreciated that more than reassurance.
Facts had become precious.
Small, hard things Daniel could not reshape if enough people refused to help him.
The evidence technician arrived twenty minutes later with another officer and a rolling case.
By then the twins had both begun crying.
Their hunger ignored police procedure.
I fed Grace while strangers photographed the coat.
The ordinary intimacy of her mouth searching clumsily against my skin felt almost obscene beside discussions of assault evidence.
Then I understood that was exactly why I wanted to keep doing it.
Daniel had turned their birth into punishment.
I refused to let every moment afterward belong to him too.
The evidence technician sealed the entire garment bag inside a larger one.
“Anything else from the clothing?”
Marcus pointed toward two storage boxes.
“Everything removed from Mrs. Miller was kept separately.”
The technician looked impressed.
“Who thought to do that?”
Elias answered from the window.
“My physician.”
“You should thank them.”
“I pay them.”
The technician snorted.
“Still thank them.”
Elias actually looked chastened.
It was the first time I saw someone speak to him without calculating the cost.
The technician inventoried my torn dress, socks, one shoe, and the thin sweater I had worn beneath the coat.
The other shoe had never been found.
There was something humiliating about watching my possessions reduced to labeled bags.
Then the technician lifted the sweater and went quiet.
“What?”
He looked at Officer Reyes.
May you like
“There’s blood on the back.”
“That’s mine.”
