Chapter 2 - Where Is Lily?
“Where’s Lily?”
Nobody answered.
David looked at the bracelet again.
“Maya.”
His voice cracked.
“Where is she?”
“She died eleven days ago.”
He blinked once.
“No.”
“Meningitis.”
“No.”
“You were called.”
“No.”
“Fifty times.”
His knees hit the floor.
It was not graceful.
He caught the folding table and nearly dragged it down.
Julianne covered her mouth.
“Oh my God.”
David grabbed his phone.
He scrolled through the call log.
Chicago Children’s Hospital.
Three calls.
One marked DECLINED.
“I thought it was spam.”
I said nothing.
He looked at me like I could rescue him from his own sentence.
“I thought—”
He stopped.
Agent Ruiz stepped closer.
“Stand up, Mr. Vance.”
David did.
The cuffs clicked.
Then Ruiz opened the leather folder.
Inside were wire records and text messages copied from a yacht phone seized in Nassau.
DAVID: Maya keeps calling.
JULIANNE: Block her.
DAVID: Done.
JULIANNE: Good boy.
Julianne went pale.
David whispered, “You took my phone?”
Ruiz answered, “A court order did.”
Then she turned another page.
The company transfer authorizations had been made with my credentials from our home iPad.
David kept looking toward the hallway as if Lily might run in late and make everyone embarrassed for overreacting.
That little glance was worse than the shouting.
Julianne sat with both hands locked around her elbows.
She finally whispered, 'He told me you two were separated.'
I looked at David.
He closed his eyes.
There are lies meant to get something and lies meant to make two people live in different worlds.
David had become good at both.
At the exact time I was sitting beside Lily in intensive care.
David stopped asking where Lily was.
He started asking for a lawyer.
May you like
That was when I knew the grief and the criminal case were going to live in the same room without ever becoming the same thing.
