Chapter 4
I forgot how to speak.
Lily's.
The word kept repeating in my head.
Detective Harris took the phone.
“Mrs. Bennett, this is Detective Daniel Harris. Where are those documents?”
Carol went silent.
“Mrs. Bennett?”
“I didn't know how far Vanessa would take this.”
“That wasn't my question.”
“They're in my car.”
“Where are you?”
Another pause.
“At my house.”
“Do not destroy anything. Do not leave.”
“I want to help.”
“Then stay where you are.”
Harris ended the call.
I stared at him.
“What photographs?”
“We don't know yet.”
“She said injuries.”
“I heard her.”
“Lily doesn't have injuries.”
Then I stopped.
I remembered little things.
A bruise on Lily's thigh Vanessa said came from the playground.
A mark near her shoulder she claimed happened when Lily fell from a chair.
A swollen wrist last spring.
The pediatrician had called it a minor sprain.
Vanessa said Lily had slipped in the bathroom.
I had believed her.
Every single time.
I leaned against the wall.
“I wasn't here.”
Harris watched me carefully.
“I wasn't here for any of it.”
“You're here now.”
“I should have known.”
“You had someone actively constructing a false reality for you.”
“That doesn't make me feel better.”
“It isn't supposed to.”
A social worker arrived shortly after midnight.
Her name was Dana Morales.
She spoke quietly with both children.
Then she pulled me aside.
“Lily can remain with you tonight as long as the police have no immediate safety concerns.”
I nodded.
“And Aiden?”
Her expression changed.
“He's more complicated.”
“He wants to stay with me.”
“I understand.”
“He considers me his father.”
“I understand that too.”
“Then let him stay.”
“Mr. Carter, you are not his legal parent.”
“So put him with a stranger?”
“No one wants that.”
“He's terrified.”
Dana lowered her voice.
“Is there a biological father?”
“Not involved.”
“Name?”
“Ethan Brooks.”
“Do you know where he lives?”
“No. Vanessa said he left the state years ago.”
Dana wrote something down.
“Any relatives besides Carol?”
“Vanessa has a sister in Arizona. They don't speak.”
“And your relatives?”
“My parents live forty minutes away.”
“They have a relationship with Aiden?”
“Yes. He calls them Grandma and Grandpa.”
Dana looked toward the living room.
Aiden and Lily had fallen asleep beside each other.
Lily's head rested on his shoulder.
Aiden had one arm around her.
Dana's face softened.
“I'm going to make some calls.”
Two hours later, my parents arrived.
My mother walked through the front door, saw Lily, and immediately started crying.
My father didn't.
He became frighteningly quiet.
“What happened?” he asked.
I told them enough.
Not everything.
Not yet.
My mother sat beside Lily and touched her hair.
Lily woke up.
“Grandma?”
“Yes, baby.”
“Can I come to your house?”
My mother looked at me.
“You can stay forever if you want.”
Lily smiled weakly.
Aiden woke next.
He looked around, confused.
Then he saw my father.
“Grandpa?”
My father sat down.
“Hey, buddy.”
Aiden ran into his arms.
That nearly ended me.
Dana watched from the doorway.
After a long conversation, she agreed both children could spend the night at my parents' house under an emergency safety arrangement while everything was investigated.
Not because I was considered dangerous.
Because I had admitted striking Vanessa.
Until authorities sorted through what happened, someone wanted another responsible adult present.
I accepted it.
I would have accepted anything that kept the children together.
At 3:17 in the morning, I packed their clothes.
Lily wouldn't let me leave her room.
“Where are you going?”
“Just downstairs.”
“Are you coming to Grandma's?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
She had started asking me that word constantly.
Promise.
Like she no longer trusted reality unless I guaranteed it.
That hurt worse than anger.
When I opened her closet, I noticed half her clothes were gone.
Not dirty.
Gone.
I checked the dresser.
Several drawers were nearly empty.
“Lily, where are your pajamas?”
She pointed toward Vanessa's room.
“Mommy packed them.”
My stomach tightened.
I entered the master bedroom.
Police had already searched some areas.
I pulled open Vanessa's closet.
Nothing.
Then Aiden appeared behind me.
“She put suitcases in the garage.”
We went downstairs.
Behind storage bins were three suitcases.
One contained Aiden's clothes.
One contained Vanessa's.
The third contained Lily's things.
Tiny dresses.
Shoes.
Her birth certificate.
Social Security card.
Medical records.
I stared at it.
If Vanessa planned to leave only with Aiden, why had she packed Lily's documents?
Aiden looked confused.
“I didn't know that one was hers.”
I called Harris.
He returned within thirty minutes.
He photographed everything.
Then he found something taped under the lining of Vanessa's suitcase.
An envelope containing cash.
Twenty-three thousand dollars.
Several prepaid phones.
Two sets of car keys.
And a handwritten list of addresses.
One address was in Nevada.
Another in Mexico.
A third in Texas.
The fourth made my blood run cold.
It belonged to a private adoption agency.
Harris looked at me.
“Do you know them?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I've never heard of them.”
We searched the name online.
The company presented itself as a “family placement consulting service.”
Its website was vague.
Very vague.
I looked at Lily.
She was asleep on my mother's shoulder.
“No.”
Harris said nothing.
“No.”
I walked toward him.
“She wasn't planning to—”
“We don't know.”
“Say it.”
“I won't speculate.”
“She packed Lily's birth certificate.”
“I see that.”
“She tried to get guardianship.”
“Yes.”
“And now there's an adoption agency address?”
“We need facts.”
I grabbed the kitchen counter.
For the first time that night, I thought I might actually be sick.
My father put one hand on my shoulder.
“Michael.”
I turned away from everyone.
I wanted to punch walls.
Scream.
Break something.
Instead, I stood there shaking.
Because Lily was watching me again.
She had woken.
Her eyes were fixed on my face.
So I forced my hands open.
I breathed.
Then I walked over to her.
“Ready to go to Grandma's?”
She nodded.
Aiden carried his own backpack.
At the door, he looked back at the house.
“You coming?”
“Yes.”
He hesitated.
“Mom isn't going to be there, right?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
We drove to my parents' home before sunrise.
Lily fell asleep in the car.
Aiden didn't.
He stared out the window.
Ten minutes from my parents' house, he spoke.
“Michael?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you going to stop being my dad now?”
I looked at him in the mirror.
“What?”
“Because Mom did bad stuff.”
“No.”
“But you married her.”
“That has nothing to do with you.”
“She said if you found out everything, you'd hate both of us.”
My hands tightened on the wheel.
“She was wrong.”
“Promise?”
There was that word again.
“I promise.”
He looked down.
Then he whispered, “Even if I knew something and didn't tell you?”
I glanced at him.
“What do you mean?”
He went silent.
My father, sitting beside him, spoke gently.
“Aiden, nobody's angry with you.”
Aiden's eyes filled.
“Mom made me promise.”
“What?”
He started crying.
“She said it was a game.”
My heart sped up.
“What game?”
“She made Lily practice saying things.”
I pulled the car over.
“What things?”
Aiden wiped his face.
“She would turn on her phone and ask Lily questions.”
“What questions?”
“Like, ‘Who hurt you?’”
I felt cold.
“What did Lily say?”
“At first she said Mommy.”
My father swore under his breath.
Aiden continued.
“Then Mom got mad.”
“What happened?”
“She told Lily the right answer was Daddy.”
Nobody spoke.
Aiden looked at me.
“She made her say your name over and over.”
I felt the world tilt.
“Did Lily ever say I hurt her?”
“Only when Mom made her.”
“Was she recording?”
He nodded.
My father leaned forward.
“Where is the phone?”
“I don't know.”
Then Aiden suddenly gasped.
“Wait.”
He opened his backpack.
He dug through pajamas, toys, socks.
Then pulled out a cracked black phone.
“Is this it?”
My pulse exploded.
“Where did you get that?”
“I took it.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Why?”
“Mom said it had all the important videos.”
He handed it to me.
The phone was locked.
Harris met us at my parents' house twenty minutes later.
He took custody of the device.
“If there are recordings, digital forensics can recover them.”
“How long?”
“I don't know.”
I hated that answer.
But there was nothing I could do.
By 6:00 a.m., the children were asleep in my old childhood bedroom.
I sat in the kitchen drinking coffee I couldn't taste.
My father sat across from me.
My mother paced.
Then Harris called.
“We found Carol.”
“You already knew where she was.”
“She wasn't at home when officers arrived.”
I sat up.
“Where was she?”
“At a twenty-four-hour document shredding business.”
My father stared at me.
Harris continued.
“She had the folder.”
“Did she destroy it?”
“Some of it.”
I closed my eyes.
“But we recovered several documents.”
“What about the pictures of Lily?”
A pause.
“We found copies.”
My voice dropped.
“What do they show?”
“Bruises.”
“From what?”
“We don't know.”
“And Vanessa claimed I caused them?”
“Yes.”
My mother covered her mouth.
Harris continued carefully.
“There is also a written statement attributed to Lily.”
“She can't write.”
“Someone wrote it for her.”
“What does it say?”
“I don't think you need to hear it over the phone.”
“Read it.”
“Michael.”
“Read it.”
Silence.
Then he did.
The statement claimed Lily was afraid of me.
That I yelled.
That I grabbed her.
That I hurt her when I was angry.
Every sentence was written in adult language.
Every sentence was a lie.
At the bottom was a purple handprint.
Lily's handprint.
I couldn't speak.
Harris said, “There's something else.”
Of course there was.
There was always something else.
“The petition wasn't seeking guardianship for Carol.”
I frowned.
“But her name was on it.”
“On the copy you saw. The filed version lists a different proposed guardian.”
“Who?”
He hesitated.
“Ethan Brooks.”
Aiden's biological father.
I stood up so fast the chair fell behind me.
“What?”
“We confirmed it.”
“That doesn't make sense.”
“I agree.”
“Ethan has nothing to do with Lily.”
“Apparently, Vanessa listed him as a family friend willing to provide temporary care.”
My father stood.
“Why would her ex-boyfriend want Michael's daughter?”
Harris said, “That's what we're trying to determine.”
I paced the kitchen.
“Where is Ethan?”
“We're locating him.”
Then Harris went silent.
Too silent.
“What?”
“We pulled public records.”
“And?”
“Ethan didn't leave the state years ago.”
I stopped pacing.
“He lives twenty minutes from you.”
My stomach dropped.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Vanessa said he hadn't contacted Aiden since he was a baby.”
“Michael...”
“What?”
“We also checked phone records associated with Vanessa's second phone.”
I already knew I wasn't going to like the answer.
Harris continued.
“She has called Ethan one hundred and eighty-seven times in the last three months.”
I couldn't breathe.
May you like
Then he added the final blow.
“And yesterday, while you were supposedly in Chicago, she spent almost four hours at his house.”
