Chương 2
“You kept going,” the woman said. “That mattered.”
The call ended.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Bellamy crouched, but not close enough to touch her. He had short dark hair with gray beginning above one ear. Sweat darkened the edge of his collar. Up close, he looked less like the force that had entered the room and more like a tired man who had done something he could not put back.
“What happened before you called?”
Wren stared at the phone. Tobin’s mother had bought the case at a gas station because it had glitter suspended in the plastic. Most of the glitter had migrated into one corner.
“I fed him.”
“What did you feed him?”
“His bottle.”
“What was in it?”
“Formula.”
“Did you prepare it?”
“Celia did before she left.”
“Celia Rusk?”
“His mom.”
“When did she leave?”
Wren looked at the microwave clock. It read 9:18, but time had stopped meaning what clocks said.
“Maybe eight-thirty.”
“Where did she go?”
“She said she had to meet someone downstairs.”
Bellamy glanced at his partner. The second officer was Officer Grant, though Wren had not caught that yet. Grant took a small notebook from his pocket.
“Downstairs where?” Bellamy asked.
“I don’t know. Lobby. Parking lot. She said twenty minutes.”
“And she didn’t return?”
“No.”
“Did she say who she was meeting?”
“No.”
Bellamy’s questions were controlled now, almost gentle, which made Wren angrier than if he had kept shouting. Gentleness cost him nothing after Tobin was gone.
“He was in my lap,” she said. “He coughed twice. Not like choking. Just two little coughs. Then he went soft.”
“Had he been sick?”
“He had a runny nose yesterday.”
“Did you shake him?”
Grant stopped writing.
Wren looked up.
Bellamy swallowed before continuing. “I have to ask.”
“You already decided.”
“I responded to a report of a person hurting an infant.”
“Who reported that?”
“A neighbor heard screaming and saw movement through the open door.”
“The door wasn’t open.”
“After we forced it.”
“Then they didn’t see anything before you came in.”
Bellamy’s mouth tightened. “Dispatch received a report that a teenage female was on top of a baby and striking his chest.”
“I was doing CPR.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it when she told you through the phone.”
“I didn’t hear the call until after—”
“You didn’t hear me counting?”
Bellamy looked at the phone in her hand, then at the bottle by his shoe.
Grant closed his notebook halfway. “Let’s slow down.”
Wren stood this time by gripping the couch cushion. Her knees felt full of water.
“I need to go to the hospital.”
“We need your guardian,” Bellamy said.
“I need Tobin.”
“You can’t leave the scene yet.”
The word scene made the apartment unfamiliar. Celia’s folded blanket on the couch became evidence. Tobin’s bottle became evidence. Wren’s backpack beside the kitchen counter became evidence. Her math worksheet, half completed, became evidence.
She folded her arms over herself. “You can arrest me or let me go.”
“No one said anything about arrest.”
“You pulled me off him.”
Bellamy rose. “Because I believed he was in immediate danger.”
“He was.”
The second officer looked down.
A woman appeared in the broken doorway wearing pink slippers and a winter coat over her pajamas. Wren recognized Mrs. Haney from across the hall, though they had never exchanged more than greetings. Mrs. Haney pressed both hands to her chest.
“Is the baby alive?”
Grant moved toward her. “Ma’am, please return to your apartment.”
“I called you,” she said. “I heard the girl yelling.”
Wren’s skin went cold.
Mrs. Haney noticed her beside the couch and took a step back.
“You,” Wren said.
The woman’s face collapsed into defensiveness. “I saw you hitting him.”
“You saw me through a closed door?”
“I saw through the—through when the police opened it. You were over him.”
“I was counting.”
“I couldn’t hear the words.”
“You told them I hurt him.”
“I told them what I saw.”
“You saw them pull me away.”
Mrs. Haney looked at Bellamy as though he might rescue her from the conversation.
Grant stepped between them. “Ma’am, go home. An investigator may speak with you later.”
“I was trying to help.”
Wren’s voice dropped. “So was I.”
Mrs. Haney left with her coat clutched shut at the throat. Her pink slippers whispered along the hallway carpet.
Bellamy bent to retrieve the bottle. Grant stopped him.
“Leave it for now.”
Bellamy straightened too quickly.
A phone began vibrating on the kitchen counter. Wren crossed the room before either officer could object. Celia’s name appeared on Wren’s screen.
She answered. “Where are you?”
There was traffic in the background. Celia sounded breathless. “I’m coming. I saw the ambulance. Wren, what happened?”
“Tobin stopped breathing.”
The traffic noise disappeared, though the call remained connected.
“What?”
“He’s at the hospital.”
“No. I was gone forty minutes.”
“You said twenty.”
“My phone died. I had to—where is he?”
“St. Vincent Children’s, probably. The paramedics didn’t say.”
Celia made a sound Wren had never heard from an adult. It was not a scream. It was worse: a breath trying to become one and failing.
“I’m in a car,” she said. “Tell them I’m his mother. Tell them I’m coming.”
“Who were you meeting?”
Bellamy’s question carried across the room.
Celia heard it. “Are the police there?”
“They broke your door.”
“Wren, don’t answer anything else until your aunt gets there.”
Bellamy’s expression changed slightly.
“Celia,” Wren said, “what was in the bottle?”
“Formula.”
“Only formula?”
“Yes. Of course only formula.”
“You made it?”
“This afternoon. It was in the refrigerator. Why are you asking me like that?”
“Because they asked me.”
Celia began crying. She tried to hide it by turning away from the phone, but there was nowhere to turn inside a call.
“I’ll meet you at the hospital,” Wren said.
“No, stay there until Maribel comes.”
“I’m not staying.”
“Wren.”
May you like
The call ended before Celia could finish.
Bellamy moved toward the kitchen. “Your aunt’s name is Maribel?”
