Chapter 5: The Man Who Came to Help
The officer outside Lily's door was joined by a second within ten minutes.
Lily slept through it.
Her breathing was steady.
The IV drip caught the light from the corridor, and I sat beside her bed and watched the door and tried to remember every conversation Michael and I had shared in the past two years.
Every dinner.
Every school pickup.
Every Sunday morning when he poured coffee and asked how I was sleeping.
I had told him everything.
I had been grateful for him.
Detective Reyes came back into the room at half past nine.
"We have him on camera," he said.
"Hospital lobby.
He came in through the main entrance forty minutes ago.
He's been in the building."
"He came here," I said.
"He's not on this floor.
We're checking the stairwells and the family waiting areas." Reyes looked at Lily.
"The officers outside are not moving."
My phone buzzed again.
Same unknown number.
*I just want to talk, Daniel.
Come to the fourth floor family lounge.
Alone.
Five minutes.
For Lily's sake.*
I showed Reyes the screen.
He photographed it.
Then he called Collins.
She was back in the room in three minutes.
She read the message twice.
"He's escalating," she said.
"He knows something went wrong with the call.
He's trying to get you isolated."
"He said for Lily's sake."
"He's using her name because it works on you." She looked at me steadily.
"Do not go."
"If I don't go, he runs."
"If you go alone, he has leverage."
I looked at Lily.
Her eyelashes were still against her cheek.
She had her mother's eyelashes.
"What if I go," I said, "and I'm not alone?"
Collins was quiet for a moment.
"Reyes," she said.
He was already nodding.
The fourth floor family lounge was a small room with blue chairs and a television mounted high on the wall, sound off, captions running.
A vending machine hummed in the corner.
The corridor outside was empty.
I walked in first.
Michael was sitting in the chair farthest from the door.
He was wearing the same gray sweater he'd worn to my kitchen that morning.
He looked tired.
He looked like my brother.
He stood when he saw me.
"Daniel — "
"Sit down," I said.
He sat.
I pulled a chair out and sat across from him.
Behind me, just outside the doorway, Reyes stood against the wall where Michael couldn't see him.
"You lied to me," I said.
"You told me you were home all afternoon."
"I panicked.
I came to check on Lily.
I should have said that."
"You came to check on Evelyn's car."
His jaw tightened.
"That's not — "
"We have you on camera, Michael.
Opening her car with your own key."
He said nothing.
"The injector has your fingerprints on it," I said.
"The trust statements were going to your P.O.
box.
Lily heard your phone call at the luncheon." I leaned forward.
"Three hundred and forty thousand dollars.
That's what you took."
Michael's hands went to his knees.
He pressed down hard.
"It wasn't supposed to go this far," he said.
"The plan was just the custody petition.
Get you removed as trustee.
Nobody was supposed to get hurt."
"You took her medication out of my pocket and you say nobody was supposed to get hurt."
"Evelyn said the dessert would be switched before Lily sat down.
She said Lily would never even see the peanuts." His voice cracked slightly.
"I didn't know she was going to let Lily eat it.
I swear to you, Daniel, I did not know that."
"But you knew about the plan."
He didn't answer.
"You signed the petition.
You filed to become her guardian.
You've been stealing from her trust for over a year." I stood up.
"You sat in my house and you ate my food and you watched my daughter and you were stealing from her the entire time."
Michael looked up at me.
Something moved across his face — not quite guilt, not quite fear.
Something smaller than both.
"Anna would have wanted Lily protected," he said.
"The money was just sitting there.
You weren't even watching it."
The vending machine hummed.
Reyes stepped into the doorway.
Michael saw him.
His face went still.
"Michael Reeves," Reyes said, "you are under arrest."
Michael looked at me one last time.
Not at Reyes.
At me.
"She was my niece too," he said.
May you like
"She still is," I said.
"That's what makes it worse."
