Chapter 3: What My Mother Said When I Called Her
I sat with Dana's words for thirty seconds.
Maybe forty.
The fluorescent light above me didn't flicker.
The ER kept moving.
A nurse wheeled a cart past my curtain and didn't look in.
Then I called my mother.
She picked up on the second ring.
"Lena." Her voice was careful.
Not warm.
Not frightened.
Careful, the way someone sounds when they have already decided what they will and will not say.
"The baker called you," I said.
"Two hours before the reception."
Silence.
"Mom."
"I didn't think it was serious," she said.
"She sounded anxious.
You know how vendors get before a big event.
She said she had concerns about the cake construction.
I told her to speak with the venue coordinator."
"She wasn't calling about the construction." My voice stayed flat.
I needed it to stay flat.
"She was calling because she found something inside the tier.
Something that shouldn't have been there."
"Lena, I didn't know—"
"Did you tell Haley she called?"
The pause was exactly one second too long.
"Mom.
Did you tell Haley the baker had called you?"
"She asked me if anything had come up," my mother said.
"I mentioned that the baker had some concerns.
I didn't think—"
"You told her." I pressed the bandage against my cheek.
The sting was useful.
It kept me in the room.
"Haley knew the baker had tried to reach someone.
And she still went ahead with it."
"You don't know that she—"
"There is a broken razor blade in a steel dish six inches from my hand right now," I said.
"It was coated in concentrated shellfish paste.
It was inside the tier of cake that Haley personally insisted I stand next to.
It cut my face open in front of a hundred and seventy-five people and it nearly triggered full anaphylactic shock." I stopped.
"So yes, Mom.
I know."
My mother didn't answer.
"The police are at the venue right now," I said.
"If anyone asks you what you knew and when you knew it, I strongly suggest you tell the truth.
Because the baker already has."
I ended the call before she could respond.
My hands were shaking badly enough that I had to set the phone on the examination table and press both palms flat against my knees.
The paper cover crinkled underneath me.
Dana texted again.
*"Rodriguez just asked Haley to step outside.
Her husband is arguing with the other officer.
It's getting loud."*
Then:
*"The baker is asking to speak to Rodriguez directly.
She has something with her, Lena.
Some kind of folder."*
I typed back: *What kind of folder?*
Three dots.
Then:
*"Looks like printed emails."*
I picked up my phone and called Officer Rodriguez's direct number.
He had given it to me before he left, written in ballpoint on the back of his card.
He answered after one ring.
"Miss Parker."
"The baker has a folder," I said.
"Printed emails.
She's been there since before you arrived.
Whatever is in that folder, I need you to take it into evidence before anyone near Haley gets close enough to take it from her."
A short pause.
Then: "Already on it."
He hung up.
I sat alone in the curtained bay, the kidney dish still on the tray beside me, the razor fragment still visible under the overhead light.
A piece of rusted metal no longer than my thumbnail.
Haley had handled it.
She had pressed it into buttercream.
She had positioned me.
She had spoken into a microphone.
*I planned something better.*
She had been smiling when the cake hit my face.
I could still see it — that particular smile, the one she had worn at every school recital, every family dinner, every moment she had ever beaten me at something or taken something that was mine.
It wasn't a happy smile.
It was a satisfied one.
Dana's next text came in.
*"Lena.
The folder.
It's emails between Haley and someone else.
Rodriguez just read the first page and his whole face changed."*
I stared at the screen.
*"There's a name on the emails,"* Dana wrote.
*"It's not the baker.
May you like
It's not the venue.
Lena — it's someone from your office."*
