Chương 4
Her phone vibrated inside Naomi’s evidence pouch on the counter. They had placed it there after court so incoming calls could be documented. The screen lit with thirty-two new notifications.
Grace turned it face down.
“Don’t.”
“I wasn’t reading them.”
“You were about to.”
“I was turning it over.”
“I can turn over my own phone.”
Grace put both hands in the air. “Fine.”
Lily waited until the baby finished, then reached for the pouch. Most of the messages were from numbers she did not recognize. Three reporters had left voicemails. An old college friend wrote, I always knew something was off about him, though she had attended the wedding and spent the reception telling Lily how lucky she was.
There were messages from Evan’s employees, Claudia’s friends, mothers from the prenatal yoga class Lily had stopped attending after she fell asleep during a breathing exercise. Some offered support. Others asked whether the video was real. One simply said, You should be ashamed of doing this to a good family.
Lily deleted nothing.
Naomi had instructed her not to.
At four twenty that afternoon, the police executed search warrants at the Reed house, Claudia’s condominium, and Evan’s office. News vans arrived before the searches ended. A helicopter circled over the neighborhood, irritating residents who had no interest in the Reeds and wanted their dogs to stop barking.
Evan and Claudia were questioned separately. Both requested attorneys. Both left the police station shortly after midnight without being charged.
Vanessa surrendered her phone only after officers produced a warrant. She gave an interview lasting seventeen minutes and said she had no knowledge of any poisoning. She explained the bracelet by claiming Evan had told her Lily no longer wanted it.
Marcus Vail withdrew from the custody case the next morning.
His letter to the court cited an emerging conflict of interest. It did not describe the conflict. By noon, photographs of him leaving the courthouse appeared beside headlines asking whether the Reed family attorney had helped manufacture allegations against a new mother.
Lily slept through most of it.
She woke on Grace’s couch with the baby on her chest and Grace sitting on the floor beside them.
“You fell asleep feeding him,” Grace said.
Lily jerked upright.
“I was watching.”
“You should have moved him.”
“You would have woken up.”
“He could suffocate like this.”
“He didn’t.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Grace stood. “I stayed right here.”
“You don’t get to decide a risk is acceptable because nothing happened.”
“No, apparently only you get to do that.”
The words landed between them.
Grace’s face changed first. “I’m sorry.”
Lily shifted the baby into the crook of her arm. “For what part?”
Grace rubbed both hands over her hair. “I’m tired. I worked last night. I’m trying to help, and every time I touch anything you look at me like I’m stealing him.”
“You sent me to that hospital.”
“Yes.”
“You called Evan.”
“You were seven months pregnant, barefoot in a grocery-store parking lot, and you didn’t know where your car was.”
“He had been drugging me.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You believed him.”
“I believed something was wrong.”
“With me.”
“With the situation.”
“You told the doctor I was acting paranoid.”
“You said somebody had moved the cereal into different cabinets to confuse you.”
“They had.”
“I know that now.”
Lily stood too quickly. The room tilted, though there was no drug in her body this time. She held the baby tighter until the floor steadied.
Grace lowered her voice. “That night, you tried to drive.”
“I was trying to leave.”
“You backed into a shopping-cart return.”
“I know.”
“You almost hit a woman.”
“I know.”
“I took your keys because I thought you were sick, Lily. I didn’t give them to Evan because I wanted him to win.”
“But you gave them to him.”
Grace looked toward the uncovered window. A child’s red ball rolled down the neighbor’s driveway and stopped against the curb.
“I have replayed that night every day,” she said. “I keep thinking there was a version where I listened better. There probably was. I don’t know how to get to it now.”
The baby made a soft clicking sound in his sleep.
Lily sat again.
Grace remained standing for another moment, then went into the kitchen and began rinsing a coffee mug that was already clean.
The argument did not resolve. It changed shape.
For the next week, Lily accepted Grace’s help only when she could watch it. Grace warmed bottles under Lily’s supervision, washed the breast-pump parts twice, and slept on the floor outside the guest room because Lily could not tolerate a closed door and could not rest with it open.
Detective Ruiz visited on the third day.
She brought no uniformed officers and parked two houses away to avoid the reporters who had begun waiting near the entrance to the street. Grace let her in through the garage.
Ruiz placed a paper bag on the kitchen table.
“The laboratory confirmed residue in the vitamin jar,” she said. “A prescription sedative. We’re waiting on additional comparison testing.”
Lily touched the edge of the table.
“Was it enough to hurt the baby?”
“We can’t answer that from the jar alone.”
“The hospital said his tests were normal.”
“That’s encouraging.”
“Encouraging isn’t the same as no.”
“No.”
Lily stared at the paper bag. It contained copies of the search inventory, not the jar itself. She knew that. Still, the shape reminded her of pharmacy packaging.
“Where did the pills come from?”
“We found a prescription bottle at Mrs. Reed’s condominium. Same medication. It was filled for her after a dental procedure last year.”
“Claudia hates pills.”
“People keep medications they don’t use.”
“She throws away antibiotics before she finishes them because she thinks they weaken the immune system.”
Ruiz wrote something in a notebook.
“What?”
“That she doesn’t like medication.”
“She likes controlling other people’s.”
Ruiz looked up.
May you like
Lily folded her arms beneath the cardigan. “Sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
