Chapter 3 - The Good Little Girl
Grant stared at Dr. Patel.
“What bruising?”
“Marks on her upper arm. We can't determine exactly how they happened just by looking. That's why we need a careful history.”
He remembered a cardigan.
Then another.
Vanessa insisting the hotel would be cold.
“I didn't see them.”
The words sounded useless because they were.
Detective Elena Ruiz arrived later that afternoon.
She asked Grant where he had been, who cared for Rose, and when he had last seen his daughter before the incident.
He answered every question.
He didn't like some of his answers.
That morning, he had been downstairs posing for photographs.
The night before, he had gone to the rehearsal dinner early.
For weeks, Vanessa had handled bath time because she'd said they needed to bond.
“Has Rose's behavior changed?” Ruiz asked.
He almost said no.
Then he saw his daughter standing beside the breakfast table with her dress buttoned wrong.
He'd laughed gently and called her his independent girl.
Vanessa had smiled over her coffee.
“She's learning.”
He remembered a scraped knee.
A trembling mouth.
“I'm okay,” Rose had said before he even reached her.
And before all of that, a question in front of a mirror.
“Rose, do you want a mommy?”
“A mommy who stays?”
He had promised her Vanessa would.
He'd made that promise as casually as promising pancakes.
“Yes,” he told Ruiz.
“Her behavior changed.”
His phone buzzed.
Vanessa's mother, Diane, had sent six messages.
The last one filled the screen.
You are destroying my daughter's life over an accident. At least hear her side before you humiliate us further.
He handed the phone to the detective.
“I'll give you everything. Messages, schedules, whatever you need.”
When he returned to Rose, Leah was helping her choose a cartoon.
Rose waited until her aunt stepped out for water.
“Did Nora go home because of me?”
Nora Ellis had cared for Rose since she was six months old.
Six weeks earlier, Vanessa had told Grant she'd quit unexpectedly.
“Why would you think that?”
Rose rubbed the rabbit's worn ear.
“Because I told.”
Grant lowered himself into the chair.
“What did you tell, sweetheart?”
May you like
Rose looked toward the door.
“Nora said she was going to tell you, too.”
