Chapter 4: The Shape of It
I said her name out loud.
Just once.
Marcus went very still.
"Vanessa," I said again, like saying it twice would make it make sense.
"She was involved in this.
Thirty years ago.
She was — what, twenty?"
"Nineteen," Harlow said.
"She was working for the broker as an assistant.
Answering phones, filing paperwork.
She may not have understood the full scope of what she was part of at the time."
"Or she understood exactly," Marcus said.
"That's what we're working to determine."
I thought about the dumpster.
About the smile on Vanessa's face when she told us to check the waste.
About the way she had said it — not panicked, not guilty.
Calm.
Like someone who had done something like this before and knew how it ended.
"She knew about Nora," I said.
"She's known this whole time."
"Almost certainly," Officer Reyes said.
"And she dr*gged my daughter to keep her quiet at a party."
"Yes."
"Because Lily was getting too excited and they didn't want a scene." I heard my own voice go flat.
"That's what my father said.
A scene.
A four-year-old excited about her birthday was a scene that needed to be managed."
Marcus put his hand over mine on the table.
I didn't move.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"Your parents and Vanessa have been taken in for questioning.
They have not been formally charged yet — the investigation is still active.
We expect charges to be filed within the next forty-eight hours, pending the prosecutor's review."
"What kind of charges?"
Harlow listed them without looking up from his notes.
Child endangerment.
Unlawful administration of a controlled substance to a minor.
Conspiracy.
And, pending the outcome of the Nora investigation, potential charges related to the illegal transfer of a child.
Each word landed like something heavy being set down.
"I want to see my parents," I said.
Officer Reyes looked at me carefully.
"That's not advisable right now."
"I'm not asking for your advice."
A pause.
"I need to look at them," I said.
"I need to sit across from them and ask them one question and watch their faces when they answer it."
"What question?" Marcus asked quietly.
I looked at him.
"Whether they would have done the same thing to Lily."
The silence in the room was complete.
Officer Reyes set her pen down.
"I can arrange a supervised visit.
Brief.
You will not be alone with them."
"Fine."
"I have to ask you something first." She leaned forward slightly.
"Is there anything else from your childhood — anything that felt wrong, that you explained away — that you think we should know about?"
I sat with that for a moment.
There were things.
Small things I had filed under the category of difficult family, of parents who ran cold, of a household where love was conditional and silence was currency.
A bedroom door that locked from the outside.
A summer I spent at my aunt's house with no explanation given.
A photograph album with pages torn out.
I told her all of it.
She wrote for a long time without speaking.
When she finally looked up, her expression had not changed — but something behind her eyes had shifted.
"We'll need to go back further," she said to Harlow.
He was already reaching for his phone.
I looked at Marcus.
He was watching me the way he always did when he was trying to decide whether to say something.
"Say it," I told him.
"I'm wondering," he said carefully, "whether Nora was the only one."
The folder sat open on the table between us.
May you like
Neither detective said anything.
That was answer enough.
