Chapter 1 - Don’t Say Chair
I forgot how to breathe.
Detective Luis Ortega lifted one finger, telling me not to answer too quickly. Derek’s voice came through the phone again, sharper this time.
“Rachel?”
I looked at Lily on the hospital bed. Her eyes were open now, but she had turned her face toward the wall.
“What chair?” I asked.
There was a pause long enough for me to hear a television playing somewhere behind him.
Then Derek laughed.
It was the same laugh he had used on the phone earlier, the one that made every accusation sound childish before I had even finished making it.
“Exactly,” he said. “There is no chair. I’m asking because Lily invents things when she gets worked up.”
Ortega wrote something on his notepad and slid it toward me.
KEEP HIM TALKING.
My hand shook so badly the phone clicked against my wedding-ring finger. I had stopped wearing the ring two years ago, but the pale mark where it used to sit was still visible under the fluorescent lights.
“She has metal in her body,” I said.
The detective’s expression changed.
I knew immediately that I had said too much.
Derek stopped laughing.
“What?”
I swallowed.
“Rachel, where are you?”
I looked at Ortega.
He gave the smallest shake of his head.
“At home.”
“No, you’re not.”
I said nothing.
“You took her somewhere.”
He was breathing differently now.
Not scared.
Busy.
I could picture him moving through his house while we spoke, picking things up, making decisions. The thought hit me so hard that I sat down.
“Derek, what happened this weekend?”
“Nothing happened.”
“What did you do to her?”
“I said nothing happened.”
The last word cracked.
Behind me, Ortega was already speaking into his radio without sound, lips moving as he pointed at the phone. Then Derek said, very quietly, “Did she say chair?” Every hair on my arms lifted.
I didn’t answer.
“Rachel.”
His voice dropped.
“Did Lily use the word chair?”
I looked at my daughter.
She had pulled the blanket up to her chin.
“No,” I lied.
Derek exhaled.
I heard a cabinet slam.
“Good,” he said.
And then the line went dead. Ortega grabbed the phone from my hand.
“Units are three minutes out.”
“Three minutes from what?”
“His house.”
I stood too fast and the room tilted.
“He knows.”
“Yes.”
“He knows you’re going there.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are we standing here?”
“Because you are not going anywhere.”
It came out harder than I expected, and I hated him for it for almost three full seconds. Then Lily made a small sound behind us.
Not a cry.
A whimper she tried to swallow. The doctor, Dr. Patel, returned with another physician and a woman wearing a hospital badge that read CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES.
“Ms. Moore,” Dr. Patel said, “we need to discuss surgery.”
The word surgery knocked everything else out of my head.
“Why?”
He turned the monitor toward me. The bright metal pieces were still there.
“We believe at least two fragments are embedded deeply enough that they need to be removed under anesthesia. One is close to tissue we don’t want irritated any further.”
“Is she going to be okay?”
“We expect so.”
Expect.
I had never hated a normal word before. I went to Lily and sat beside her.
“Hey, bug.”
She didn’t look at me.
I brushed damp hair away from her forehead.
“We’re going to help your body feel better.”
“Needles?”
“Probably one.”
Her mouth twisted.
“That’s rude.”
The nurse beside me made a surprised little laugh.
I almost did too.
Lily had always called inconveniences rude. Rain on a playground day was rude.
Broccoli was rude.
Her shoelace coming undone was extremely rude. The fact that she still sounded like herself for one second nearly broke me.
“I agree,” I said. “Very rude.”
She finally looked at me.
“Don’t tell Daddy I cried.”
My chest tightened.
“Why?”
Her eyes moved to the stranger from child protection.
Then back to me.
“Because he says crying makes the timer start over.”
No one moved.
Dr. Patel looked at Ortega.
The child protection worker slowly sat in the chair near the bed.
“What timer, sweetheart?” she asked.
Lily’s face closed.
Just like that.
Her chin tucked down.
Her fingers slipped out of mine.
“I’m tired.”
The woman nodded immediately.
“Okay. You don’t have to talk.”
I wanted to ask anyway.
I wanted to pull every word out of Lily before someone could erase them. Instead, I sat there and bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. That was the first thing I learned that night. Protecting a child did not always look like getting answers.
Sometimes it looked like shutting up when every terrified part of you wanted to keep asking. Twenty minutes later, the surgical team came for her. I walked beside the gurney until the double doors where parents had to stop.
Lily grabbed my sleeve.
“Mommy.”
“I’m right here.”
“You said Daddy isn’t coming.”
“He isn’t.”
She stared at me, searching my face for the kind of certainty I did not feel.
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
The doors closed between us.
I stood there with my palms pressed together because they would not stop shaking.
Ortega’s radio crackled behind me.
A voice came through, broken by static.
“Detective, we’re at the Voss residence.”
Ortega lifted the radio.
“What’s the status?”
Another pause.
Then the officer said, “Front door was open.”
My stomach dropped.
Ortega stepped away from me.
“Any sign of Voss?”
“Negative.”
“What about the chair?”
Static.
Then:
“Sir, there’s no chair here.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course there wasn’t.
The officer kept talking.
“But we found something in the garage.”
Ortega looked toward me.
“What?”
“A section of carpet’s been cut out.”
Another voice spoke in the background. Then the officer came back on.
“And there’s fresh bleach everywhere.”
I opened my eyes.
Ortega’s face had gone still.
The radio crackled one last time.
“Detective, you need to see the wall.”
“What’s on the wall?”
The answer came quietly.
“Child-height handprints.”
My knees weakened.
“How many?” Ortega asked.
The officer did not answer right away. When he finally did, his voice had changed.
“More than one set.”
---
(To be continued)
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