Chương 4
“Did he instruct you to bring Ellie to work?” Tasha asked.
“No.”
“Whose idea was it?”
Mara swallowed. “Mine.”
Aaron typed something.
“But Victor knew,” Mara said. “He found us in the employee bathroom the first night. He said she couldn’t be seen by customers or by Mr. Moretti.”
“What did he tell you to do?”
“He opened the storage closet.”
“Did you understand the closet contained cleaning products?”
“They were on metal shelves. I put Ellie on the other side.”
“Was there ventilation?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were you able to hear her from your work area?”
“No.”
The word came out small.
Tasha rested her pen on the folder. “How often did you check on her?”
“Every ten or fifteen minutes.”
“Do you have records of that?”
“I was serving tables.”
“So no.”
Mara’s face burned. “I know how it sounds.”
“How does it sound to you?”
“Like I left my baby in a closet.”
Ellie reached for the top button of Mara’s uniform blouse. Mara had changed into it automatically that morning before remembering she had not called the restaurant.
Tasha watched the baby’s fingers. “Why did the manager lock the door from the outside?”
“I didn’t know he had.”
“Did you authorize anyone else to care for Ellie?”
“No.”
“Then how did she end up in Mr. Moretti’s office?”
“A server found her. Dominic—Mr. Moretti—picked her up.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know Mr. Moretti socially?”
“No.”
“Has he ever been in your home?”
“No.”
“Has he provided money, housing, childcare, transportation, or gifts?”
“No.”
Mara looked toward the kitchen. The covered yellow rattle seemed suddenly enormous.
Tasha followed her gaze. “Is there something you want to add?”
“No.”
The lie was instinctive and immediate.
Tasha let the silence remain.
Aaron asked to see the crib. Mara showed them. He checked the smoke detector and photographed the refrigerator contents with permission that did not feel optional. There was milk, eggs, half a rotisserie chicken, apples, baby formula, and a jar of mustard Owen had bought before he died because it came in a two-pack. Mara had thrown the first jar away. She had never opened the second.
Tasha examined Ellie’s medical appointment records on Mara’s phone. The baby was current on routine visits. Her weight curve was normal. There were no unexplained injuries.
“We’re not removing your daughter today,” Tasha said at last.
Mara sat very still.
“Today?”
“We need to complete an assessment. We’ll speak to other people who were present, review the report, and schedule a follow-up visit.”
“Am I supposed to thank you?”
“No.”
The honesty surprised her.
Tasha closed the folder. “I don’t think you intended to harm Ellie.”
“I didn’t.”
“Intent matters. Conditions matter too.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Mara looked down at her daughter. “I do now.”
Tasha’s face softened by a degree. “There’s another issue. The report included photographs.”
Mara looked up.
Aaron turned the tablet toward her.
The first image showed Ellie asleep on the folded blue blanket in the storage closet. The angle was from above. A box of commercial degreaser stood several feet away, though the photograph made it appear inches from her face. The second showed Mara crouching beside Ellie while wearing her restaurant uniform. The third showed Victor pointing toward the closet while Mara stood with her head lowered.
“These weren’t taken last night,” Mara said.
“When?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“Who took them?”
“I didn’t see anyone.”
“Would the area be covered by restaurant security cameras?”
“Yes.”
“Can you request the footage?”
“From Dominic Moretti?”
Tasha waited.
Mara understood the question beneath the question. “I can ask.”
After they left, she called Aurelia.
Colin answered on the first ring. “Mara.”
“Is Dominic there?”
A pause. “Mr. Moretti is in a meeting.”
“Tell him Child and Family Services just left my apartment.”
The pause changed shape.
“I’ll inform him.”
“Tell him whoever reported me sent photographs from two weeks ago. Tell him I need the security footage from the storage hallway before it disappears.”
“Mara, nothing will disappear.”
“People say things like that right before something disappears.”
“I will have legal contact you.”
“I don’t want legal.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You are correct,” Colin said. “I don’t.”
It was the first time she had heard him admit uncertainty in nine months.
A car arrived forty minutes later.
Mara recognized it through the window: black sedan, tinted rear glass, driver in a dark coat. She considered ignoring it until Leah Rosen called.
“I’m outside,” the lawyer said. “I have copies of the relevant security recordings.”
“You could have emailed them.”
“The files are large, and chain of custody may matter.”
Mara looked at Ellie, who had fallen asleep in the portable seat beside the table. “Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Is Dominic with you?”
“No.”
“Is anyone hiding in the trunk?”
Leah laughed once. “Not to my knowledge.”
Mara let her upstairs.
Leah Rosen looked nothing like the lawyers in television dramas. She was in her early forties, short, compact, with rain frizzing the edges of her dark hair. She carried a laptop, a sealed storage drive, and two paper cups of coffee.
“I didn’t know how you take it,” she said. “So one is black and one has milk.”
“I don’t want anything from him.”
“The coffee is from me. It cost four dollars. You can reimburse me later if that preserves the republic.”
Mara took the one with milk.
Leah sat at the kitchen table and opened the laptop. “First, the video confirms that Victor directed you into the closet several times. There’s no audio. It also shows him fastening the latch from the outside last night.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know.”
“To make me look worse.”
“That is one possibility.”
“What’s another?”
“He was preventing you from entering during service.”
Mara stared at her.
“I’m not defending him,” Leah said. “I’m separating what we know from what we suspect. That will matter.”
May you like
She played the footage.
Mara watched herself moving through the service corridor two weeks earlier, Ellie in her arms beneath a coat. Victor appeared from the kitchen, glanced both ways, and opened the closet. He pointed inside. Mara argued. The exchange had no sound, but her own posture made the memory return with humiliating clarity.
