Chương 4
“Don’t.”
“I’m trying to answer her.”
“You’re trying to correct her.”
“Because she’s wrong.”
The first knock sounded from somewhere near the front of the house.
Marcus moved toward the hall, then stopped and looked at Daniel for permission.
Daniel nodded.
“Bring them in.”
Nora muttered something under her breath.
“What?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing.”
“No, say it.”
“I said this is insane.”
Daniel watched her.
“You’re afraid.”
“Of course I’m afraid.”
It came out immediately.
For once, there was no polished control behind it.
“You accused me of poisoning you in front of half the people we know.”
“I asked what you put in the tea.”
“And what exactly do you think happens to me after that question?”
Daniel did not answer.
Nora laughed bitterly.
“My name is already in somebody’s group chat.”
A guest looked away.
“By morning, there’ll be a version where I tried to kill you because you were leaving me, or because of money, or because I’m secretly sleeping with someone.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed.
“Are you?”
Nora stared at him.
He regretted the question before the silence finished forming.
“That’s what you took from that?”
“No.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I’m angry.”
“You’re always allowed to be angry.”
Something in her voice made Lily look up.
Daniel felt the accusation but did not understand it.
Two uniformed officers entered with Marcus, followed by paramedics carrying medical bags.
Conversation disappeared.
One officer, a broad-shouldered woman with gray threaded through her hair, raised a hand.
“Everybody stay where you are for a moment.”
She looked first at Daniel, then at Lily, Nora, and finally the spill.
“Who made the call?”
“I did.”
“Did anyone ingest anything?”
“No.”
The officer nodded.
“Good.”
She asked everyone to move away from the broken cup and instructed one of the paramedics not to disturb the liquid until they had photographed it.
Nora lifted the prescription bottle.
“I have medication on me.”
The officer looked at it.
“Keep holding it for now.”
“There may be another bottle,” Daniel said.
Nora turned on him.
“There is no other bottle.”
The officer’s attention shifted between them.
“Who saw another bottle?”
Lily raised her hand.
The gesture was small and painfully familiar, like she was answering a question in school.
Daniel’s chest tightened.
The officer crouched several feet away instead of approaching her.
“What’s your name?”
“Lily.”
“I’m Officer Reyes.”
Lily nodded.
Reyes glanced at Daniel.
“You her father?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
She looked back at Lily.
“You don’t have to tell me anything right now if you don’t want to.”
Lily moved closer to Daniel.
Reyes waited.
The silence lasted long enough for a paramedic to unzip a bag behind them.
Then Lily said, “I saw a blue bottle.”
Nora inhaled sharply.
Officer Reyes did not look at her.
“Where did you see it?”
“In her hand.”
“Whose hand?”
Lily pointed.
“Nora’s.”
“Did you see what she did with it?”
Lily hesitated.
Daniel resisted the urge to fill the silence.
“She put something in Dad’s cup.”
Nora said, “That is not true.”
Officer Reyes stood.
“Ma’am, I need you to stop for a minute.”
“She’s saying I poisoned him.”
“She’s six.”
“So that means I can’t defend myself?”
“It means I’m going to speak to everyone separately.”
The second officer began moving the remaining guests toward the sitting room.
Some protested.
One man said he had an early flight.
Another asked whether he was being detained.
The officer told him he was being asked to remain available as a witness.
Daniel watched the normal machinery of inconvenience grind into motion around the extraordinary accusation.
Nora lowered her prescription bottle.
Officer Reyes held out a small evidence bag.
“You can place that in here.”
Nora did.
Then Reyes said, “I’m also going to ask whether you have any other containers, medication, liquids, or similar items on you.”
“No.”
“Would you consent to emptying your pockets?”
Nora looked at Daniel.
For a second he saw the woman who had sat beside him at Lily’s kindergarten recital and cried harder than he had.
Then her eyes became unreadable.
“Yes.”
She reached into the pocket that had held the prescription bottle.
Nothing.
The other pocket produced a folded tissue, a key card, and a tube of lipstick.
Officer Reyes watched carefully.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
Lily tugged Daniel’s sleeve.
He bent down.
She whispered, “Her purse.”
Daniel looked across the room.
Nora’s chair was near the wall where she had been sitting before dinner.
A black purse hung from its back.
Nora saw where he was looking.
Her entire body changed.
It was slight.
A tightening in the shoulders.
A pause in breathing.
Nothing anyone would have noticed if the room had not already taught Daniel to watch her.
Officer Reyes noticed too.
“Is that yours?”
Nora did not answer immediately.
Then she said, “Yes.”
Reyes glanced at her partner.
“Don’t touch it.”
Nora’s face turned pale again.
Daniel stared at the purse.
And this time, when Nora looked at him, there was no anger left in her eyes.
There was only fear.
Officer Reyes followed Nora’s gaze to the purse and then looked back at her.
“Do I have permission to search that?”
Nora’s mouth opened, but no answer came.
The younger officer beside Reyes shifted his weight and glanced toward Daniel.
Daniel said nothing.
He had spent most of his adult life believing silence was a kind of pressure you applied to other people.
Standing there with Lily against his side, he discovered it could press equally hard in every direction.
Nora finally said, “No.”
One of the guests in the sitting room whispered something loud enough to carry.
Reyes did not react.
“That is your right.”
Nora’s shoulders dropped a fraction.
“We’ll leave it where it is.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You were willing to empty your pockets.”
“I’m not letting police dig through my purse because a terrified child thinks she saw something.”
Lily flinched.
Daniel’s hand tightened on her shoulder.
May you like
Nora saw it immediately.
“I didn’t mean—”
