Chương 5
Daniel hated the answer because it did not give him immediate certainty.
Then he understood that immediate certainty was one of the things he had been buying his entire adult life.
Police did not work for him.
Facts did not become faster because he needed them.
“Okay.”
Ortiz nodded.
“That’s the right answer.”
He almost laughed.
Instead he looked at the ceiling camera.
“How much footage is saved?”
“Do you know?”
Daniel shook his head.
“I just regained access today.”
The officer’s expression changed.
“Why today?”
He explained the school absences.
The strange calls.
Rachel restoring access.
When he finished, Ortiz asked, “How long had you known the cameras weren’t available?”
“Months.”
“And you didn’t fix them?”
Daniel looked at the dishes.
“No.”
The answer stayed between them.
Ortiz did not rescue him from it.
By twelve thirty, the mansion contained six people who all wanted different things.
Vanessa wanted to leave.
Daniel wanted answers.
Sophie wanted Noah fed.
The officers wanted everyone separated and the facts preserved.
A paramedic unit had been requested after Noah became unusually sleepy.
Daniel’s attorney, having learned enough from Rachel to become alarmed, called three times.
Daniel ignored all three calls.
When the paramedics arrived, Sophie came downstairs.
She saw them place a small sensor against Noah’s foot.
Her face tightened.
“Is he dying?”
Daniel turned quickly.
“No.”
One paramedic looked up at him.
Daniel corrected himself.
“They’re checking him.”
The paramedic nodded.
“His vitals look okay so far. We’d like a physician to evaluate hydration and feeding.”
Sophie stood near the stairs.
Daniel wanted to put his hand on her shoulder.
He did not.
He had begun noticing how often adults touched children to comfort themselves.
“Do you want to come with me?” he asked.
“To the hospital?”
“Yes.”
She looked at Vanessa, who now wore black pants and a cream sweater and sat near the far end of the living room with Officer Ortiz’s partner beside her.
“Is she coming?”
“No.”
Sophie’s shoulders dropped slightly.
“I’ll come.”
At the hospital, Noah drank almost six ounces of formula under observation.
Sophie watched the bottle as if it were a medical procedure.
Daniel sat beside her.
Neither spoke while Noah ate.
When the bottle was empty, Noah made a small unhappy noise.
The nurse smiled.
“He’s voting for more.”
Sophie smiled too.
It appeared suddenly and disappeared so quickly Daniel nearly missed it.
He realized he had not seen that expression in weeks.
The pediatric emergency physician found mild dehydration but no immediate evidence of serious malnutrition. Noah would need follow-up with his regular pediatrician and monitoring of feeding and weight.
Daniel thanked the physician.
Then the physician asked to speak with Sophie separately.
Daniel hesitated.
Sophie saw it.
“You can go,” she said.
He looked at her.
It was the first full sentence she had directed at him all day.
“All right.”
He went into the hallway.
A hospital social worker met him there.
Her name was Melissa Huang.
She carried a tablet and spoke in a tone that was neither warm nor cold.
“We’re going to need to talk about the caregiving situation at home.”
Daniel nodded.
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
The question irritated him.
He almost answered defensively.
Then he looked through the narrow window in the hospital door and saw Sophie speaking to the physician.
“No,” he said. “Probably not.”
Melissa sat across from him in a consultation room.
She asked who lived in the home.
Who had legal custody.
Who provided daily care.
Who handled school transportation.
When Daniel answered that Vanessa had been handling most weekday routines, Melissa asked how often Daniel was physically present.
He began giving his schedule.
She stopped him.
“I don’t need your calendar. I need an estimate.”
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
“Early mornings. Nights. Weekends when I wasn’t traveling.”
“How many nights away last month?”
He opened his calendar.
Eleven.
The number looked different when it referred to his children instead of work.
“Eleven.”
Melissa typed.
“Who cared for Noah overnight when you were gone?”
“Vanessa.”
“And Sophie?”
“Also Vanessa.”
“Did Sophie have another adult she could contact freely?”
Daniel thought of his sister Elaine in Boston.
Sophie’s grandmother in Arizona.
Rachel.
The housekeeper who had been reduced to two days a week after Vanessa said she preferred privacy.
“No.”
Melissa looked up.
Daniel understood the answer had been worse than he expected.
At three twenty, his phone rang.
Angela Morris.
The former nurse.
Daniel left the consultation room and answered.
“Thank you for calling.”
“I almost didn’t.”
Her voice was clipped.
“Why?”
“Because I spent two months trying to decide whether I should report what I saw in that house, and I’ve felt like a coward for six.”
Daniel stood beside a vending machine.
“What did you see?”
A long pause.
“Vanessa didn’t like Sophie touching Noah.”
Daniel frowned.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It made sense to Vanessa. She said Sophie overstimulated him. She corrected the way Sophie held him, talked to him, stood near the crib. At first I thought she was anxious.”
Angela stopped.
“What changed?”
“She started treating access to the baby like leverage.”
Daniel’s hand tightened around the phone.
“With Sophie?”
“Yes. Do homework, then you can hold him. Finish dinner, then you can say good night. Stop crying, or you’re upsetting the baby.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Angela exhaled.
“I tried.”
Daniel said nothing.
“You remember the night you came home from Chicago early?”
He did.
Barely.
He had arrived at eleven, exhausted, and found Angela and Vanessa arguing in the kitchen.
Vanessa told him Angela had given Noah the wrong formula ratio.
Angela had denied it.
Daniel had told them both to deal with it in the morning.
By morning Vanessa had documentation showing the mistake.
Angela resigned two days later.
“She said you mixed the formula incorrectly.”
“I didn’t.”
“Vanessa had the bottle log.”
“She rewrote it.”
Daniel leaned against the wall.
May you like
“Can you prove that?”
“No. That’s the problem. I checked the log at ten that night. It was correct. In the morning, the entry was different.”
