Chapter 3 - The Last Call
The officer’s name was Alvarez.
I told him about the calls while another officer photographed the bed, the torn sheets, and the marks on Emily’s wrists.
“Is her number blocked?” he asked.
I checked.
It was.
I stared at the screen so long he repeated my name.
“I didn’t do this.”
“Who had access to your phone?”
Victoria answered from the hallway.
“We’re married. We use each other’s phones. That proves nothing.”
Alvarez turned toward her.
“I was asking him.”
I found Emily’s phone in Victoria’s handbag after the officer asked her to produce it.
The screen was cracked.
Six missed calls from Mercy Children’s.
Three outgoing calls to me.
Then one answered hospital call at 3:42 p.m.
Victoria looked at the phone as though it had betrayed her.
“I told them she was busy.”
Emily had already been taken downstairs.
I was glad she didn’t hear that.
“Busy?” I said.
“With our children.”
“You tied her to furniture.”
“She needed to understand that she had responsibilities.”
The hallway went silent.
Alvarez’s partner stopped writing.
Victoria looked from one officer to the other.
“You’re twisting my words.”
“No one twisted anything,” I said.
My sister, Grace, arrived twenty minutes later, still wearing her work badge. I had called her because I trusted her, because the twins needed someone, because every ordinary decision suddenly felt too large.
She walked into the nursery and saw the cut linen.
“Oh, God.”
“The pediatrician at the emergency department will check them,” I said. “Can you come with me?”
“Of course.”
Victoria was downstairs when we carried the babies out.
An officer stood beside her.
She reached toward Sophie’s carrier.
Grace moved it away.
“You don’t get to do that right now.”
Victoria’s face hardened.
“You’ve always hated me.”
Grace looked at her.
“This has nothing to do with me.”
At the hospital, both babies were examined. They were hungry and needed monitoring, but the doctor found no immediate injury.
I nearly collapsed from relief.
Then I walked to the adjoining children’s wing.
Emily stood outside a room with fresh bandages around her wrists.
“Is he—”
“He’s alive,” she said.
Through the glass, I saw a small boy beneath a blanket printed with rockets.
Emily pressed her hand against the window.
Then she looked at me.
“There’s something I haven’t told you about the money you gave Mrs. Cole.”
“What money?”
“The money for Noah’s treatment.”
May you like
My stomach dropped.
Because I had given Victoria eighty thousand dollars.
