Chương 6
I had spent months being told exactly how long things would last.
Ten minutes.
Five more.
Until you cooperate.
Until you stop making this difficult.
As long as we need to sounded almost humane when the person saying it did not own the lock.
A nurse brought water and told me to take small sips.
The first mouthful tasted metallic.
I drank anyway.
My stomach rolled.
She put a basin beside me without comment.
I looked at it and laughed once under my breath.
“What?”
Priya asked.
“Nothing.”
She waited.
I pointed at the basin.
“They used to get mad if I missed.”
Priya’s face changed.
Just slightly.
She pushed the basin closer.
“You can miss here.”
That nearly destroyed me.
I turned my face away and stared at the wall until my eyes stopped burning.
A digital evidence technician arrived carrying a hard case and wearing an ID badge clipped crookedly to his belt.
He introduced himself as Marcus Bell.
He asked permission before touching the phone.
I made him repeat what he planned to do.
He did.
He would document the device.
Prevent remote changes where possible.
Create a forensic image.
Verify the copy.
Return the physical phone according to the investigator’s instructions unless it needed to remain in evidence.
“What about the recordings?”
“They’ll be copied.”
“All of them?”
“If they’re on the device and accessible, yes.”
“What if one is damaged?”
“We’ll know more after acquisition.”
I hated words like acquisition.
They sounded bloodless.
But bloodless was useful.
Bloodless meant procedure.
“Can I watch?”
“Yes.”
I handed him the phone.
My body reacted before my mind did.
My hand chased it halfway across the gap between us.
Marcus stopped.
“You want it back?”
I looked at the phone in his palm.
Every hidden whisper.
Every cough.
Every time Marlene had told Daniel to adjust the mixture.
Every time Daniel had laughed because I turned my face away.
Seven months were inside something small enough to lose between couch cushions.
“No,” I said.
“Just don’t leave with it without telling me.”
“I won’t.”
He worked at a rolling table near the bed.
I watched every cable.
Every screen.
Every movement.
Ortiz returned and sat again.
She had changed somehow during those phone calls.
Less tentative.
More focused.
“They detained Daniel and Marlene separately.”
“Arrested?”
“Not at this point.”
My mouth tightened.
She saw it.
“Detention and arrest are not the same thing.”
“They were caught in the house.”
“Yes.”
“I was upstairs.”
“Yes.”
“With a tube.”
“Yes.”
“Then what else do you need?”
She folded her hands.
“Enough evidence to support what happens next.”
“I’m evidence.”
“You are.”
“That should be enough.”
“For me to believe you?”
She paused.
“It matters.”
“For a prosecutor, a judge, charges, search warrants, eventual trial?”
She shook her head.
“Your statement matters, but the system still requires corroboration where we can get it.”
I hated her for saying it.
Only for a second.
Then I hated myself for understanding.
“So they get time.”
“They get rights.”
“Did I get rights?”
Ortiz’s jaw shifted.
“That isn’t how I’m asking you to think about this.”
“It’s how I’m thinking.”
“That’s fair.”
I looked away.
Outside the room, somebody pushed a supply cart past the curtain.
The wheels squeaked rhythmically.
A man farther down the hall complained about parking validation.
The ordinary irritation of it made me want to scream.
Instead I drank another sip of water.
“What did they say?” I asked.
“Who?”
“Daniel.”
Ortiz watched me carefully.
“He asked for an attorney.”
Of course he had.
Not Where is my wife?
Not Is the baby safe?
An attorney.
“And Marlene?”
“She spoke for a while.”
A cold little pulse moved beneath my ribs.
“About what?”
“She said you had been medically unstable.”
I smiled without meaning to.
Ortiz noticed.
“What?”
“She always gets worse when she thinks she sounds reasonable.”
Ortiz opened her notebook.
“She claimed the attic arrangement was voluntary.”
I looked at her.
“Voluntary.”
“She said you wanted privacy.”
“With a lock outside the door?”
“She said the lock was for safety.”
Daniel had used the same word.
Safety.
They had repeated it until it stopped meaning anything.
“What did she say about the tube?”
Ortiz’s silence answered first.
“She said she was trying to keep you nourished.”
I looked toward Dr. Feld.
The doctor kept her attention on the monitor.
She was pretending to give us privacy.
“She isn’t a nurse.”
“No.”
“Doctor?”
“No.”
“Dietitian?”
“No.”
“She sells houses.”
Ortiz glanced up.
“What?”
“She’s a real estate agent.”
That surprised her.
I felt a small, vicious satisfaction.
Marlene had always been proud of her licensing.
She liked correcting people about property disclosures.
She once spent half a Thanksgiving explaining escrow to my sister.
“She had no medical training,” I said.
“Not that we’ve identified.”
“She watched videos.”
“What kind?”
“Feeding tubes.”
Ortiz’s pen stopped.
“When?”
“Early.”
“Before or after she started using one on you?”
I tried to place the memory.
Marlene at the kitchen island.
Her tablet propped against a sugar bowl.
A cheerful instructional voice.
Daniel telling her the volume was too loud.
Me upstairs in the guest bedroom then, not the attic yet.
“I think before.”
Ortiz’s eyes sharpened.
“You saw her researching it before the tube was placed?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t that alarm you?”
The question hurt more than she meant it to.
She saw my face immediately.
“I’m not blaming you.”
“I know.”
But I had heard the other question beneath it.
Why didn’t you leave?
Why didn’t you understand?
Why didn’t you save yourself earlier?
I pressed my fingertips against the blanket.
“I thought she was helping.”
That sentence cost me something.
Marlene had driven me to appointments when Daniel was working.
She had brought ginger candies.
She had complained about my obstetrician’s parking garage.
May you like
She had sat on the bathroom floor with me one morning while I vomited and held my hair away from my face.
The memory made me nauseated now for reasons that had nothing to do with pregnancy.
