Chương 6
Wren stood in the kitchen wearing Maribel’s old sweatshirt. The cuffs covered her hands.
Bellamy said, “I came to apologize.”
Maribel looked at Wren.
Wren shook her head, then changed her mind and crossed the room. Maribel opened the door but kept the security chain fastened.
Bellamy wore civilian clothes: jeans, a dark jacket, no visible badge. Without the uniform, he looked taller and less certain. He held an envelope.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he said.
“Good start,” Maribel replied.
He looked at Wren through the gap. “I reacted before I understood what I was seeing.”
“You reacted before you listened,” Wren said.
“Yes.”
“Did you hear the dispatcher tell you I was doing CPR before you grabbed me?”
“No.”
“Was it on your radio?”
“I’m reviewing that.”
“You’re reviewing your own ears?”
Bellamy lowered his gaze. “The call information should have identified you as the caller. I entered during overlapping radio traffic. I heard the neighbor shouting from the hallway. I saw your hands moving on the baby’s chest.”
“So you stopped them.”
“Yes.”
Maribel’s hand tightened around the edge of the door.
Bellamy held out the envelope, then seemed to realize it could not pass through the gap. “This is my contact information and the number for the department’s professional standards unit.”
“You brought us a complaint form?” Maribel asked.
“I brought a way to document what happened.”
“What happens to you if she documents it?”
“I don’t know.”
“That means nothing happens,” Wren said.
Bellamy looked up. “It may mean several things.”
“Do you want me to say it was understandable?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to say you were scared?”
His face shifted.
Wren noticed. “You were.”
Bellamy took a breath and released it slowly. “Four years ago, I responded to an infant assault. The person holding the child told us he was helping. I hesitated.”
Maribel’s expression hardened. “Do not make another dead baby responsible for what you did to this child.”
“I’m not.”
“You walked here in plain clothes to tell a fifteen-year-old your trauma before she could tell you hers.”
Bellamy closed his mouth.
Wren had not expected Maribel’s words, and neither had he. He looked at the envelope, folded it once down the middle, then stopped himself from folding it again.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
He placed the envelope on the floor outside the door.
“This apology is not part of the report,” Maribel said.
“No.”
“Then put it in the report.”
Bellamy nodded. “I will.”
Maribel closed the door.
They listened to his footsteps move down the hall.
Wren opened the door again and picked up the envelope.
“I thought we hated it,” Maribel said.
“We can hate it indoors.”
The official interview took place that afternoon in a room at police headquarters with gray walls and a camera fixed near the ceiling. Detective Ortiz offered Wren water and explained that she was being interviewed as a witness, not a suspect. Maribel asked whether that could change. Ortiz said she would not promise what evidence had not yet shown.
Wren respected the answer more than reassurance.
Ortiz played part of the emergency call. Wren heard her own voice say, He’s not waking up, he’s not waking up, please stop asking me the address, you have the address. Then the dispatcher calmed her, verified the apartment, and guided her through breathing checks and compressions.
When the recording reached Bellamy’s entry, Ortiz stopped it.
“Do you want a break?”
“No.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I shake now.”
Maribel reached beneath the table and touched Wren’s knee.
Ortiz continued the recording. Bellamy’s voice was distant, shouting for Wren to get away. Wren’s counting broke. There was fabric movement, the bottle rolling, Wren crying out, and then the dispatcher’s correction.
The interruption lasted eleven seconds.
Wren counted them on the playback.
“What did you think Officer Bellamy was going to do?” Ortiz asked.
“I thought he was going to arrest me.”
“Did he identify himself?”
“He was wearing a police uniform.”
“Did you understand why he pulled you away?”
“I understood what he thought.”
“That isn’t the same question.”
Wren stared at the water bottle. “No. I didn’t understand. Tobin was blue. The dispatcher told me not to stop.”
“Did Officer Bellamy strike you?”
“No.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“No.”
“Did you resist?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I twisted. I tried to get back.”
“Did you hit or kick him?”
“I don’t think so.”
Maribel said, “She was being pulled off an unresponsive infant.”
Ortiz nodded. “I’m not assigning blame by asking.”
“You work in a building that does,” Maribel said.
Ortiz allowed the silence to remain.
Then she asked about Celia, Nolan, the bottle, the earlier pauses in Tobin’s breathing, and the timeline. Wren gave the same answers until repetition made them feel invented.
At the end, Ortiz said toxicology testing on Tobin and the bottle would take time. The apartment had been released to Celia after evidence technicians collected several items. The cracked phone remained with investigators because the emergency recording and device logs might matter.
“Can they take my call from it?” Wren asked.
“The emergency center retains the audio separately.”
“I mean the phone. It has pictures.”
“It belongs to Ms. Rusk.”
“There are pictures of Tobin on it.”
Ortiz’s expression softened. “She will get it back.”
Wren disliked the softness. “When?”
“When it is no longer needed.”
That evening, the hospital’s cardiology team found an abnormal interval on Tobin’s electrocardiogram. They repeated the test because medications, illness, and cardiac arrest itself could alter the result. The second tracing remained concerning.
Celia called Wren from the hospital stairwell.
“They think it might be his heart,” she said.
Wren sat on the floor beside her bed. “What does that mean?”
“A rhythm condition. They said congenital long QT syndrome, maybe. They have to do more tests.”
“Is he awake?”
“No. They’re reducing the sedation tomorrow.”
“What about his brain?”
“They don’t know.”
May you like
Celia’s voice frayed on the last word.
Wren pressed her forehead to her knee. “Nolan’s brother.”
