Chapter 3 - THE BLUE MEDICINE
The social worker’s name was Dana Miller.
She had calm eyes and a voice that made you want to tell the truth.
I sat beside Lily while Dana knelt a few feet away.
“No one is in trouble,” Dana said.
Lily stared at her shoes.
“Can you tell me about the blue medicine?”
Lily shook her head.
I reached for her hand.
“You can tell her.”
“Mom said no.”
“Mom isn’t here.”
Lily looked at me.
“That doesn’t mean she can’t know.”
A chill ran through me.
Dana noticed.
“Lily, did Mommy give Tommy the blue medicine?”
A long pause.
Then one tiny nod.
“How often?”
“When he cried.”
My stomach turned.
“Why?”
Lily whispered, “So he’d sleep.”
I looked at Dana.
She didn’t react.
That was probably training.
I was not trained.
I stood so fast the chair scraped backward.
“What the hell?”
“Mr. Carter—”
“She drugged my baby?”
Dana raised one hand.
“We don’t know exactly what happened yet.”
“I do.”
I was pacing now.
“I know exactly what she just said.”
Then Lily began crying.
I stopped instantly.
“Hey.”
I crouched again.
“Hey, baby, I’m sorry.”
“I made you mad.”
“No.”
I wrapped my arms around her.
“You didn’t make me mad.”
“You yelled.”
“At the situation.”
She didn’t understand the distinction.
She was five.
I closed my eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Dana gave me a look that said: control yourself.
I nodded.
A police officer entered fifteen minutes later.
Officer Ben Ortiz.
He asked me what I knew.
Almost nothing, as it turned out.
I told him about the locked room.
The bruises.
Rachel’s call.
The basement Lily had mentioned.
He wrote everything down.
Then he said something I didn’t expect.
“We need your permission to enter the property.”
“You have it.”
“And the locked room?”
“Break it down.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“I’m serious.”
“We may need a warrant depending on what we find.”
“Then get one.”
My phone buzzed again.
Rachel.
This time it was a text.
WHERE ARE YOU?
I stared at it.
Then another came.
DON’T LET LILY TALK TO POLICE.
I showed Ortiz.
His expression changed.
“Don’t respond.”
Then another message arrived.
MARK, SHE GETS CONFUSED WHEN SHE’S SCARED.
And then:
SHE MAKES THINGS UP.
I looked at Lily.
She was sleeping against my side.
“Officer.”
“Yeah?”
“My daughter told me her mother would make her say she lied.”
He looked at the texts again.
“I heard.”
I clenched my jaw.
“So what now?”
“We send officers to the house.”
He paused.
“And we find your wife.”
Rachel arrived before they could.
She walked through the hospital doors wearing sunglasses.
At night.
Her sister Michelle was beside her.
Rachel rushed toward me.
“Where are my babies?”
I stepped between her and Lily.
“Don’t.”
She stopped.
“What?”
“Don’t go near her.”
Her face hardened.
“Mark, move.”
“No.”
Michelle stepped forward.
“You’re acting insane.”
I looked at her.
“Tommy had sedatives in his blood.”
Rachel froze.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
Then she said, “That’s impossible.”
Lily woke at the sound of her mother’s voice.
Her entire body curled inward.
Rachel saw her.
“Lily, honey.”
Lily started shaking.
“Tell Daddy.”
Rachel’s voice stayed sweet.
“Tell him you got into Mommy’s medicine cabinet.”
I turned slowly toward my wife.
May you like
She had just made the biggest mistake of her life.
Because nobody had told her what Lily said.
