Chương 5
“That’s not what I asked.”
Rachel covered her mouth with her napkin.
Adrian glared at her.
She lowered it.
“What?” she said. “She’s your child.”
Sophie said, “Do you still love Madison?”
Adrian looked at the untouched food on his plate.
There were questions business school did not prepare anyone to answer.
“I don’t know what I feel about Madison right now.”
“I hate her.”
The certainty in Sophie’s voice frightened him.
“You’re allowed to be angry.”
“I hate her.”
“You’re allowed to feel that too.”
“Do you?”
He rubbed his thumb over the edge of the table.
“I’m very angry.”
“That means yes.”
“No.”
Sophie frowned.
“Adults can be angry at somebody and still have other feelings.”
“That’s stupid.”
Rachel made a choking noise.
This time Adrian laughed.
It lasted one second, and afterward he felt guilty for it.
Sophie seemed offended that anything could still be funny.
He understood.
The first laboratory information came the next afternoon.
Detective Torres called Adrian directly.
“The tablets Sophie found contain medications that do not appear on the list your physicians provided.”
“What medications?”
She named a category rather than a drug, explaining that one was strongly sedating and another could contribute to weakness and low blood pressure when used improperly.
Adrian stared through his study window while she talked.
A landscaper outside was repairing a sprinkler head near the hedge. He had the ordinary concentration of a man whose afternoon had not been rearranged by betrayal.
“And the injector?”
“Preliminary testing suggests it also contained a sedating medication. We’re waiting on confirmation and concentration.”
“Was it prescribed to me?”
“Not according to the records we have.”
Adrian sat very still.
Something inside him had been waiting for a chance to dismiss all of it.
A misunderstanding.
A panicked child.
A mislabeled medicine.
A bizarre but innocent explanation.
That part went quiet.
Torres said, “Mr. Cole?”
“I’m here.”
“We’ll need to talk again.”
“When?”
“This afternoon if possible.”
“Come here.”
She hesitated.
“Is your daughter present?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll speak somewhere she can’t hear.”
“Obviously.”
After the call, Adrian rolled into the hall.
He stopped where the glass had shattered.
The marble had been cleaned, but one tiny scratch remained near the baseboard where a fragment had skated into the wood trim.
He hated that he noticed it.
He hated more that he considered having it polished out.
“Leave it,” Rachel said behind him.
Adrian looked over his shoulder.
She was holding two mugs of coffee.
“What?”
“The scratch.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You do it with your face.”
She handed him a mug.
He took it.
For a while they stayed in the hallway without speaking.
“You should have called me three days ago,” Rachel said.
“Yes.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“You don’t get to turn this into one of your efficient little acknowledgments.”
Adrian looked into his coffee.
“I thought if I accused Madison and I was wrong, I’d destroy my marriage.”
Rachel leaned against the wall.
“And if you were right?”
“I thought I needed proof.”
“You needed help.”
He looked at her.
She did not soften it.
“You’ve always done this.”
“Done what?”
“Wait until you can control the information before you tell anyone there’s a problem.”
“That is an impressive diagnosis from someone wearing mismatched socks.”
Rachel looked down.
One sock was gray, one black.
“That’s intentional.”
“It’s not.”
“It could be.”
He almost smiled.
She didn’t.
“You know what Sophie told me this morning?”
His stomach tightened.
“What?”
“She thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That Madison was changing your pills.”
He stared at her.
“She thought you knew and allowed it because doctors told you to.”
“That makes no sense.”
“She’s seven.”
He looked down the hall toward the staircase.
Rachel lowered her voice.
“She saw Madison put different tablets into your nighttime case. More than once. She asked what they were. Madison told her grown-up medicine looks different sometimes.”
Adrian’s hand tightened around the mug.
“Then why did she take the silver case?”
“Because two nights ago she heard Madison arguing on the phone.”
“With who?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“What did she hear?”
“Something about you being ‘too awake.’”
The coffee tasted metallic.
“Why didn’t she tell you that last night?”
“She did. You were talking to the police.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Rachel stared at him.
“Because at four in the morning, she was shaking so hard she spilled water on herself. I made a choice.”
Adrian wanted to argue.
Instead he looked away.
Rachel took his coffee before he dropped it.
Detective Torres arrived with another detective, Nolan Brooks, shortly after three.
They interviewed Sophie only with appropriate support present, and Adrian was not in the room.
He hated that too.
He sat in the library while Rachel stayed near the child, listening to the grandfather clock click with a patience he found insulting.
When Torres finally returned, Adrian looked up.
“What did she say?”
“I’m not going to turn her interview into a briefing for you.”
“I’m her father.”
“Yes.”
He waited.
Torres sat across from him.
“She described seeing Madison exchange pills more than once.”
“With what?”
“She couldn’t reliably identify containers or dates.”
“What about the phone call?”
“She heard Madison tell someone, ‘He’s too awake tonight.’ She thinks that was two nights before the incident. She also remembers Madison saying, ‘I’m not giving him more.’”
Adrian’s eyes lifted.
Torres watched him.
“That matters.”
“It may.”
“She was arguing with somebody who wanted her to increase whatever she was giving me.”
“That is one possible interpretation.”
“What’s another?”
“That your daughter heard part of a conversation and filled gaps. Children do that. Adults do it too.”
“Do you think she lied?”
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
Adrian looked down.
Torres continued. “Lying and being incomplete are not the same thing.”
He thought of Sophie telling him he had lied because he could stand.
May you like
“That phrase is popular in this house lately.”
Brooks, standing near the shelves, said, “Do you know anyone who might benefit from you remaining medically impaired?”
