Chapter 3 - The Box With Her Name
The police would not let me see what was inside Lily’s bin. That became the next thing I could not control. I could not go to Derek’s house. I could not watch the search.
I could not speak to him. I could not ask Lily what MAX or TESS meant because the child protection specialist had already warned me that repeated questions could contaminate her memory. I could not even sit beside my daughter while she slept because nurses were moving her into a monitored pediatric room and needed space around the bed. So I stood in a hospital hallway holding a paper cup of coffee I never drank while strangers opened a plastic box with my six-year-old’s name on it.
At 2:17 in the morning, Detective Ortega came back. His face told me before he spoke.
“What was in it?”
He gestured toward a small consultation room.
“No.”
“Rachel.”
“Tell me here.”
A nurse pushing an empty wheelchair slowed as she passed us. Ortega waited until she turned the corner.
“Printed behavior charts.”
I stared at him.
“What kind of charts?”
“Rows of dates. Columns for what looks like compliance, crying, bathroom requests, food refusal, verbal disrespect.”
My stomach turned.
“Food refusal?”
“Yes.”
“She’s six.”
“I know.”
“What else?”
“A kitchen timer.”
I gripped the coffee cup until the lid bent.
“Gray webbing straps.”
My hand opened.
Coffee splashed onto the floor.
I didn’t move.
Ortega kept going because stopping would have been worse.
“There are photographs.”
“Of Lily?”
“Some.”
“What do they show?”
He looked at me for too long.
“What do they show?” I repeated.
“We are not going to go through those with you tonight.”
“That bad?”
“Rachel.”
“Are they that bad?”
His silence answered.
I put my hand against the wall. The paint was pale green and slightly rough under my palm. I remember that because my mind refused to remember anything useful for several seconds.
Then one thought cut through.
“Who are Max and Tess?”
“We’re working on it.”
“And the date?”
“Yes.”
“Next Saturday means somebody else.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“You know.”
“We suspect.”
“That’s the same thing if you’re six.”
Ortega looked away.
For the first time since he arrived at the hospital, he looked angry.
Not professionally angry.
Human angry.
“I have a team checking every person connected to the residence,” he said. “We’re not ignoring it.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I nearly dropped it pulling it out.
It was my sister, June.
WHERE ARE YOU? MOM SAID LILY’S IN THE ER. I had not called my mother.
I showed Ortega.
“How does my mother know?”
“Maybe hospital?”
“No.”
My mother lived two hours away and had no relationship with Derek. Then I saw the second message.
ELAINE CALLED HER.
I closed my eyes.
Of course she had.
Elaine Voss was not running.
She was organizing.
I called June before Ortega could tell me not to.
She answered immediately.
“What happened?”
“Don’t call anyone. Don’t post anything. Don’t tell Mom details.”
“That makes me feel extremely calm, thank you.”
“June.”
Her voice changed.
“Okay.”
“Did Elaine say why Lily’s here?”
“She said you had another ‘episode’ and took Lily to the emergency room after a difficult custody exchange.”
My mouth fell open.
“She said what?”
“She sounded very concerned about you.”
I laughed.
It came out like a cough.
“What else?”
“She said Derek is with police voluntarily and you’re making allegations.”
“He’s with police?”
Ortega’s eyes narrowed.
He took out his phone.
June kept talking.
“Rachel, what happened to Lily?”
I looked through the glass panel in her hospital-room door. She was sleeping on her side, one hand under her cheek. A purple dinosaur bandage covered the IV at her wrist.
“I can’t tell you everything.”
“Is she safe?”
“Yes.”
I looked at Ortega.
“For tonight.”
June inhaled sharply.
“I’m coming.”
“No. Stay with Mom. Keep her off Facebook.”
“That may be beyond my skill set.”
Normally that would have made me smile.
It almost did.
Then Ortega stepped into the hallway and took a call.
His posture changed immediately.
I ended my call with June.
“What?”
He covered the phone.
“Derek has counsel.”
“Already?”
“Elaine called Martin Bell.”
I knew the name.
Everybody in our county knew the name. Bell handled judges’ divorces, doctors’ malpractice cases, city officials’ sons who got arrested after midnight. He was expensive enough that Derek used to joke we could not afford to be criminals.
“Is Derek arrested?”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because he showed up before officers entered Elaine’s house. He says he went there because she called him about a family emergency.”
“He turned his phone off.”
“He says the battery died.”
“He left his house.”
“He says he went out for food.”
“He bleached the garage.”
“He says he didn’t.”
“The chair.”
“He says there was never a restraint chair.”
I stared at him.
“The photo.”
“Bell is already arguing the deleted image was a repair project and that your notification preview doesn’t show a child.”
“The box.”
“Derek says his mother created behavior charts to help with Lily’s ‘emotional regulation.’ He denies knowing how the box got behind the wall.”
I felt something cold settle inside me.
“Elaine.”
Ortega nodded once.
“She is now saying she has been concerned about Lily’s behavior for months.”
“What behavior?”
“She says Lily has been violent.”
My mouth went dry.
“Lily?”
“Tantrums. Kicking. Biting.”
“She has never bitten anyone.”
“Elaine says there are witnesses.”
“Who?”
“Derek’s girlfriend, Serena Pike.”
I had met Serena twice.
Perfect blond ponytail.
Soft voice.
A son around eight years old who barely spoke at a barbecue last summer.
My mind jumped backward.
“Max.”
Ortega’s eyes sharpened.
“What?”
“Serena’s son is Max.”
He pulled out his notebook.
“Last name?”
“Pike. Max Pike.”
“How old?”
“Eight, I think.”
“When did you last see him?”
“July. At Derek’s.”
“Anything unusual?”
I tried to remember.
Max sitting on the porch steps while the other children ran through a sprinkler. Derek telling him to join them.
Max shaking his head.
Serena saying he was shy.
Then something else.
A small thing.
So small I had forgotten it. Max had not sat at the picnic table for dinner. He ate standing beside the counter.
I looked at Ortega.
“He wouldn’t sit down.”
“What?”
“Max. At the barbecue. He stood the whole time.”
Ortega was already dialing.
He walked away from me, speaking fast. I went into Lily’s room and sat beside her bed.
For ten minutes, nothing happened.
Then fifteen.
Then twenty.
At 2:52 a.m., Ortega returned.
He did not come all the way inside.
“Rachel.”
I stood.
“Did you find him?”
He nodded.
“Max is not at Serena’s apartment.”
“Where is he?”
“She says he’s with his father.”
“Is he?”
“His father says he hasn’t seen Max in three weeks.”
The room seemed to shrink.
“Where’s Serena?”
“She’s also gone.”
Ortega’s phone rang again.
He answered, listened, then swore under his breath.
“What now?”
He looked at Lily.
Then at me.
“Derek’s lawyer just filed an emergency motion.”
“For what?”
Ortega’s jaw tightened.
“To stop you from having unsupervised contact with Lily.”
---
(To be continued)
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