Chương 4
Vanessa folded her arms. “She already named Grant in front of forty people.”
“She made a statement,” Hale said. “That does not mean adults should shape what comes next.”
“She wasn’t shaped,” Ethan said.
“I didn’t say she was.”
Vanessa stared at the floor. “Grant said Ethan coached her.”
Ethan turned toward her. “When?”
“At the party. Before the ambulance left.”
“He had enough time to accuse me but not enough to explain why there were marks on her wrist?”
Hale raised one hand. “This is exactly why I need both of you to stop speaking to each other about the facts.”
Ethan looked through the narrow window in the examination-room door. Lily sat with the nurse, holding a small paper cup and watching the uneven-eyed turtle.
Hale asked when custody had transferred for the party. Vanessa said it was her scheduled weekend. Ethan had agreed to an additional overnight so Lily could attend the engagement celebration.
“Was Mr. Mercer responsible for supervising her at any point?” Hale asked.
Vanessa hesitated.
The pause was slight, but Ethan saw it.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“You don’t know whether your fiancé was responsible for your six-year-old daughter?”
“There were many adults present.”
“That was not my question.”
Vanessa’s pearl earrings trembled when she turned her head. “I asked him to take her inside and help her clean up after she spilled lemonade.”
Ethan went cold.
“Why didn’t you say that before?”
Vanessa looked at Hale instead of him. “Because I didn’t think it mattered.”
“What happened after that?” the detective asked.
“I went to greet people arriving at the side terrace. I assumed Grant brought her back out.”
“How long before you noticed she was gone?”
Vanessa’s answer came slowly. “I’m not sure.”
“Estimate.”
“Twenty minutes. Maybe thirty.”
Ethan took one step away because standing near her had become unbearable.
Hale continued. “What did you do then?”
“I asked my mother if she had seen her. We checked the house.”
“Did you ask Mr. Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Vanessa looked toward the examination room. “He said she was sulking because he corrected her behavior.”
“Did he say where she was?”
“He said she had gone outside.”
“And did you search the garden?”
“There were guests arriving. I asked staff to look.”
Ethan stared at her profile. “You kept hosting.”
Her mouth tightened. “I was looking.”
“You kept smiling.”
“You don’t know what I was doing.”
“I saw the photographs online before she called me. You were giving a toast.”
Vanessa flinched.
Hale stepped between their lines of sight without physically moving. “Mr. Cole, take a moment.”
Ethan walked to the vending machines at the end of the hall. He did not want anything, but he studied the rows of chips and crackers as if required to choose. A packet of peanut-butter cookies had gotten stuck sideways in its metal coil. Someone had paid for it and received nothing.
He pressed his palms against the machine’s warm glass.
Thirty minutes.
He tried to imagine Lily in the storage room for thirty minutes. Then he tried not to.
A nurse approached with a paper cup of coffee. “You look like you could use this.”
He took it. “Thank you.”
“It’s terrible.”
“That’s fine.”
“It may be worse than terrible.”
He drank anyway. She was right.
When he returned, Vanessa sat alone outside Lily’s room. The detective had stepped away to make a call.
Vanessa had removed one white heel and was rubbing the back of her ankle. A bright blister showed above the shoe. It was such an ordinary injury that Ethan resented it.
“You agreed to the extra night,” she said.
He stopped.
Her voice was quiet. “You’re going to tell yourself you shouldn’t have.”
He said nothing.
“You’ll go over the phone call. You’ll think you heard something in her voice when I picked her up. You’ll decide you ignored it.”
“I did hear something.”
“What?”
“She asked whether Grant would be there.”
Vanessa looked up. “And what did you say?”
“I said it was your engagement party, so probably.”
“Did she say she was afraid?”
“No.”
“Then you didn’t know.”
“Neither did you, apparently.”
Vanessa put her heel back on. “I knew he was impatient with her.”
“How impatient?”
“He thinks children should listen the first time.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“He raised his voice. Once or twice.”
“And you left her with him.”
“I asked him to help her clean lemonade off her dress.”
“For thirty minutes.”
“I lost track of time.”
“Don’t say it like you misplaced your keys.”
She stood so quickly the chair scraped the wall. “Do you think I don’t know what this looks like?”
“I don’t care what it looks like.”
“I do.”
The honesty of it stopped him.
Vanessa pressed a hand against her forehead. “I care because appearances are how I survived my parents, this family, the divorce, every room where people decided what kind of woman I was before I opened my mouth. I care because I have been trained to care since I could stand up straight.”
“And Lily?”
Her hand fell.
Ethan’s voice broke on the name. “Where did she fit while you were surviving the party?”
Vanessa looked through the door window.
“She was supposed to be safe,” she said.
The words were nearly inaudible.
“So was I,” Ethan replied. “When I was married to you.”
He regretted it immediately. Not because it was entirely false, but because it belonged to another argument. They had an endless supply of old injuries, and he had just placed one on the floor of a hospital beside their daughter.
Vanessa’s expression closed.
May you like
Detective Hale returned before either could repair the moment.
A temporary safety plan was arranged. Lily would leave with Ethan. Vanessa would have no contact with Grant in Lily’s presence, and any visit with Lily would be coordinated after child-welfare workers reviewed the case. Vanessa signed the paper with a pen the hospital receptionist had decorated with a plastic sunflower.
