Chương 8
Then I looked at Lily asleep under three blankets and decided manuals had their uses.
“Is she coming with me?”
“That is the plan I’m recommending.”
My shoulders loosened before I could stop them.
“For how long?”
“Until the court makes a determination or we establish another safe arrangement.”
“Taylor will fight it.”
“Probably.”
“Evelyn will lie.”
“Probably.”
I looked at her.
Monique gave a small shrug.
“I’ve been doing this eleven years.”
“What happens to Evelyn?”
“That depends on the criminal investigation.”
“She admitted anything?”
“I haven’t spoken with her.”
“Why not?”
“Because police asked us to coordinate interviews.”
That made sense.
I hated that it made sense.
“What did Taylor say?”
“I can’t give you a full account.”
“Did he deny knowing?”
Monique paused.
“He said his mother sometimes used what he called cooling-off spaces.”
The phrase was so obscene in its neatness that I felt nauseated.
“Cooling-off spaces.”
“Yes.”
“A freezer.”
“He denied knowing she used the freezer as one.”
“Did he know about the closet?”
“I can’t—”
“Monique.”
She looked at Lily.
Then back at me.
“He acknowledged knowing your daughter had been placed in the closet before.”
I leaned back.
The chair creaked.
“For discipline?”
“That was his description.”
My mouth went dry.
“And the photograph?”
“He denied remembering one.”
I stared at her.
“That’s not a denial.”
“No.”
“He remembers something.”
“I can’t speculate.”
I wanted to push harder.
Instead, I looked at my daughter’s hand lying open on the blanket.
Her nails were short.
There was chipped purple polish on one thumb from the last time we painted them together.
That had been five weeks earlier.
Before I moved into the apartment.
Before the custody schedule.
Before I learned that calendars could become weapons.
“What happens in the morning?”
Monique explained that Michelle could petition the court for emergency temporary custody.
CPS would submit its initial safety assessment.
Police would continue gathering evidence.
Nothing she said sounded fast enough.
Nothing could.
The doctor discharged Lily shortly after two.
Her temperature had normalized, but they gave me instructions about monitoring her, watching for unusual sleepiness, pain, confusion, or changes in skin color.
I read every line twice.
Martinez brought Lily a pair of hospital socks with cartoon stars on them because the ones she had arrived in were damp.
Lily inspected them solemnly.
“They’re ugly.”
Martinez nodded.
“Tragically.”
“I like them.”
“Then my work here is done.”
Lily smiled.
It was the first real smile I had seen since opening the freezer.
I nearly cried over a pair of ugly socks.
Monique walked us to the parking garage.
Sergeant Morales was waiting beside my car.
The sight of him made my stomach tighten again.
“I need to update you before you leave.”
I unlocked the passenger door and helped Lily inside.
She moved slowly and winced when bending her fingers.
I buckled her seat belt because she asked me to.
Then I closed the door and stepped several feet away.
Morales kept his voice low.
“We secured the security recorder.”
“Was there footage?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Why?”
“The local storage drive was removed.”
I stared at him.
“Removed when?”
“Can’t tell yet.”
“Was it gone when you got there?”
“Yes.”
“Then what did you take?”
“The recorder housing, network equipment, and a secondary memory module.”
I knew enough about Taylor’s system to understand the basic shape of the problem.
He had bought it after the tool thefts because he hated monthly subscriptions.
Most of the video recorded locally.
If the drive was gone, somebody had deliberately taken it.
“Who had access?”
“That’s one of the things we’re establishing.”
“Taylor.”
“Possibly.”
“Evelyn.”
“Possibly.”
“Anybody else?”
“We don’t know.”
I folded my arms against the cold.
“Lily says Evelyn took a photograph of her in the closet and sent it to Taylor.”
Morales nodded.
“Ms. Alvarez told me.”
“Can you recover it?”
“Maybe.”
Again, boundaries.
Again, procedure.
Again, maybe.
“Did Taylor consent to you looking at his phone?”
“No.”
Of course he hadn’t.
“Can you get a warrant?”
Morales gave me a look that was not unfriendly.
“You know I can’t discuss investigative steps.”
“I know.”
“Then stop making me say it.”
That almost made me smile.
Almost.
He handed me a card with the case number written on the back.
“Your attorney will want this.”
“I already have one.”
“I figured.”
He glanced toward my car.
“Your daughter did well tonight.”
“She shouldn’t have had to.”
“No.”
I put the card in my wallet.
“Sergeant.”
He waited.
“When you walked into that garage, did Evelyn say anything before I left?”
He took a second before answering.
“She said you had manipulated the child.”
I felt my jaw tighten.
“Anything else?”
“She said you were unstable from deployment-related stress.”
The words did not surprise me.
That made them worse.
Taylor had used a softer version during the divorce.
Too rigid.
Too reactive.
Too accustomed to command.
He never said unstable in court because Michelle would have demanded evidence.
Evelyn apparently had fewer instincts for self-preservation.
“Did she say I was dangerous?”
“Yes.”
“What did you think?”
Morales looked at me for a moment.
“I thought your daughter was hypothermic.”
It was exactly the answer I needed.
Not trust.
Not reassurance.
Facts.
I thanked him and got into the car.
Lily was already asleep.
Her cheek rested against the side of the booster seat, and the foil hospital blanket was tucked around her legs beneath my coat.
I drove to my apartment at twenty miles below the speed limit.
Every red light felt personal.
At three in the morning, the streets near downtown Colorado Springs were nearly empty.
A delivery truck idled outside a grocery store.
Two college-age men laughed beside a gas pump.
A woman in scrubs stood under the bright lights of a convenience store drinking something from a paper cup.
Ordinary people having an ordinary night.
May you like
I envied them with a bitterness that embarrassed me.
My apartment was on the second floor of a complex I had chosen because it was fourteen minutes from Fort Carson and available immediately.
