Chương 2
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. I found her between the dumpsters.”
“How long?”
“Maybe six minutes. Seven.”
“Who else was here?”
“No one I saw.”
His gaze settled on her face. “You touched the phone.”
“Yes.”
“You moved her.”
“She was falling into the water.”
One of the men in black approached and crouched several feet away. “Sir, ambulance is ninety seconds out.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
Lily made a small sound. His attention snapped back to her.
“Daddy.”
“I’ve got you.”
Lena felt Lily’s body grow heavier against her arm.
“Keep talking to her,” Lena said.
Dominic looked at her as if he was unaccustomed to instructions.
“Say something she knows. Something ordinary.”
He turned back to his daughter. The rain ran from his hair onto his collar.
“You left your red pencils all over my desk again.”
Lily’s eyelids trembled.
“And,” he continued, his voice lower, “I found a cracker in my shoe.”
“That was Benny.”
“The dog doesn’t eat crackers.”
“He does.”
“There you are,” Lena whispered.
Dominic glanced at her. There was no gratitude in his face yet, only recognition that she had been right.
The ambulance entered from the south end of the alley, forcing one SUV to reverse. Paramedics moved in with equipment and questions. Dominic answered Lily’s date of birth, medical history, allergies, medications. His precision made Lena think he had rehearsed those answers for a disaster he had expected in some other form.
One paramedic fitted an oxygen mask over Lily’s face. Another asked Lena to move back.
Lily caught Lena’s wrist.
“No.”
“It’s okay,” Lena said. “They’re helping you.”
“No leave.”
The paramedic looked between Lena and Dominic.
Dominic’s eyes went to his daughter’s hand.
“She comes,” he said.
The words were not a request.
Lena rode in the ambulance with Lily while Dominic followed in the middle SUV. She sat on a narrow bench with her soaked trousers clinging to her knees and watched numbers change on a monitor she did not understand. The paramedic said Lily was cold, dehydrated, and in respiratory distress, but conscious. He asked whether Lena was family.
“No.”
Lily still held her wrist.
The paramedic gave Lena a brief look that was neither judgment nor curiosity. He had probably learned to postpone both.
At Lakeshore Children’s Hospital, the emergency entrance was bright enough to feel unreal. A nurse guided Lena away while the medical team took Lily through double doors. Dominic arrived less than a minute later with two security men and a woman carrying a leather briefcase.
The woman spoke first.
“I’m Elena Price, counsel for Mr. Rosetti. We need your full name, address, employer, and a complete account of what you witnessed.”
Lena stared at her.
Dominic stood behind the attorney, rainwater dripping from the hem of his coat.
“My name is Lena Marks. I’m cold, I’m wet, and I just held your client’s daughter together in an alley. Could I get a towel before the deposition?”
Elena Price blinked once.
Dominic removed his overcoat and handed it to Lena.
She looked at it. “That’s probably worth more than my car.”
“Do you have a car?”
“No.”
“Then it’s worth more.”
It was an odd answer, almost dry, and it surprised her enough that she accepted the coat.
The wool was heavy and warm. It smelled faintly of cedar and rain.
A hospital security officer asked Dominic’s men to remain near the waiting area. One of them objected in a quiet voice. The officer repeated the instruction. For a moment the air seemed to narrow.
Dominic raised two fingers.
His men stepped back.
A police detective arrived twenty minutes later. She was short, in her forties, and wore a navy raincoat over plain clothes. She introduced herself as Mara Chen and asked Lena to speak in a consultation room.
Elena Price followed.
“No,” Detective Chen said.
“She is a witness in an incident involving my client’s minor child.”
“She is not your client.”
Dominic watched them from beside the vending machines.
Lena tightened his coat around herself. “Can I just tell both of you once?”
Detective Chen studied her. “You can tell me first.”
The consultation room had four plastic chairs, a table scarred with initials, and a box of tissues mounted to the wall. Lena described the buzzing phone, the girl between the dumpsters, the bracelet, the call, and the SUVs.
“You knew the father was coming?” Chen asked.
“He said he was.”
“And you stayed.”
“She asked me not to leave.”
“That was the only reason?”
Lena rubbed her thumb over a worn place in the table. “Was there supposed to be another one?”
Chen’s expression softened by less than an inch.
“What time did you leave work?”
“Eleven twenty-three. Maybe eleven twenty-five.”
“Anyone see you?”
“Everyone. I got yelled at for forgetting table twelve’s card.”
“Why did you use that alley?”
“To make the bus.”
“Do you often take it?”
“When I miss the earlier one.”
“Did you know Lily Rosetti?”
“No.”
“Dominic Rosetti?”
“Only in the way people in Chicago know names they don’t say loudly.”
Chen leaned back.
“What way is that?”
Lena looked at the closed door. “You’re the detective.”
For the first time, Chen almost smiled.
She asked about the phone. Lena explained that it had been on the ground about three feet from Lily’s left hand. She had not checked messages or call history. She had pressed only Dad and then 911 from her own phone.
“Did Lily say who left her there?”
“No.”
“Did she mention anyone?”
“She said her father gets mad at people.”
“That could describe half the fathers in Illinois.”
“She sounded afraid for whoever he was going to be mad at, not afraid of him.”
May you like
Chen wrote that down.
When Lena returned to the waiting area, Dominic was standing at the window, though there was nothing to see except his reflection and the lighted parking structure beyond it. His suit jacket was gone. His white shirt clung damply to his shoulders.
