Chapter 5 - SOMEONE WAS STILL WATCHING
Rachel met us at Nationwide Children’s Hospital shortly before midnight.
She looked as though she had aged ten years.
Lily was sitting upright in a hospital bed watching cartoons with an IV taped to her hand.
The moment she saw me, she cried.
“Mommy!”
I ran to her.
The doctor tried explaining that Lily appeared stable and that her symptoms might have been unrelated to the juice, but police had collected the bottle anyway.
I held my daughter against my chest until my arms hurt.
Rachel stood near the door crying.
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything.”
“I should have checked the delivery.”
“You didn’t know.”
Her grocery delivery had arrived around five.
Two bags.
Bread.
Fruit.
Milk.
Juice boxes.
Several brands Rachel regularly purchased.
She assumed her husband had ordered them.
Her husband assumed she had.
Lily drank half a juice box before saying it tasted “funny.”
Within an hour, her stomach hurt.
Maybe coincidence.
Maybe not.
After everything that had happened, nobody was taking chances.
Detective Mercer arrived twenty minutes later.
He pulled me into the hallway.
“The order was placed using your mother-in-law’s grocery account.”
“She’s in jail.”
“Yes.”
“So who placed it?”
“We’re working on that.”
“Did Judith schedule it before her arrest?”
“No.”
The order had been placed that afternoon.
From an internet connection not associated with Judith’s home or jail.
Ethan joined us.
“Malcolm.”
Mercer nodded slightly.
“We’re looking for him.”
Judith’s younger brother lived in Cincinnati.
Retired insurance executive.
Divorced.
No children.
According to Thomas, Malcolm had helped threaten him in 1993.
According to Judith’s phone records, she had called Malcolm fourteen times in the week before the twins died.
Police had gone to his home.
He wasn’t there.
Neither was his car.
By morning, preliminary testing found nothing immediately dangerous in Lily’s juice.
The doctor believed she likely had a minor stomach virus.
I should have felt relieved.
Instead I felt more afraid.
Because the delivery itself had accomplished something.
It proved someone could reach her.
At six that morning, Mercer returned with a sealed envelope.
“This was delivered to the police station.”
My stomach dropped.
“From who?”
“Courier.”
He opened a photocopy.
Three lines had been typed on plain paper.
YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT THE GIRL QUIET.
THOMAS SHOULD HAVE STAYED DEAD.
FAMILIES SURVIVE BY PROTECTING THEIR SECRETS.
Ethan read it twice.
Then he sat down.
“Malcolm knows my father is alive.”
Mercer nodded.
“Likely.”
“How?”
“That’s what concerns me.”
Only law enforcement, Samuel Price, our immediate family, and Thomas knew we had found him.
Someone inside that circle had talked.
Or someone was monitoring us.
Thomas was moved to a secure hotel.
Lily was released from the hospital under police protection.
Rachel’s house was no longer considered safe.
Neither was ours.
Mercer arranged for us to stay temporarily at an undisclosed rental owned by the county for protected witnesses.
That first night, Ethan slept downstairs.
Not because police required it.
Because I did.
After Lily was asleep, he found me in the kitchen.
“Claire.”
I continued rinsing a cup.
“We need to talk.”
“I’m exhausted.”
“So am I.”
I turned.
He looked terrible.
His eyes were red.
He had not shaved.
For years, Ethan had been the calm one in our marriage.
Accountant.
Planner.
The man who made spreadsheets before vacations.
Now everything about him seemed uncertain.
“I failed you at the memorial.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t have an excuse.”
“No.”
“I thought you were attacking my mother during the worst moment of our lives.”
“She had just attacked me.”
His eyes dropped.
“I know.”
“You watched her.”
“I know.”
“And your instinct was still to protect her.”
He nodded.
That surprised me.
No argument.
No explanation.
Just acceptance.
“She trained me to do that,” he said quietly. “My whole life.”
I stared at him.
“She made everything a loyalty test. If I disagreed, I was betraying her. If I spent holidays with you, I was abandoning her. If I questioned her, I was becoming my father.”
“And you let that become my problem.”
“Yes.”
I had expected defensiveness.
The lack of it made me angrier.
“You don’t get forgiven because you finally understand why you hurt me.”
“I know.”
“My sons are dead.”
His face collapsed.
“I know.”
“Your mother may have killed them while trying to destroy me.”
He pressed his fist against his mouth.
I continued because I needed him to hear it.
“And my daughter watched you defend her grandmother after she hit me.”
He closed his eyes.
“I will spend the rest of my life regretting that.”
“Maybe.”
I set the cup down.
“But regret isn’t repair.”
“No.”
Silence stretched between us.
Then Ethan said, “I’m moving out when this is over.”
I blinked.
He continued.
“Not because I want the marriage over. Because you should not have to ask me.”
I said nothing.
“I need therapy. I need to understand why I let her control me. And you need space to decide whether you ever want me back.”
For the first time since the memorial, I saw something in him that resembled the man I had married.
Not because he apologized.
Because he stopped asking me to carry the burden of his apology.
Before I could answer, Mercer called.
They had found Malcolm’s car.
Abandoned outside a storage facility near Dayton.
Inside his rented unit, police discovered boxes of Judith’s documents.
Some were financial.
Others were medical.
One box contained photographs of our family.
Another contained copies of Lily’s preschool records.
And underneath them was a handwritten note.
LILY KNOWS TOO MUCH.
I had to sit down.
“Where is Malcolm?”
“Still missing.”
“What does the note mean?”
“We don’t know.”
“Do you think he’ll come after her?”
Mercer paused.
“We’re treating that as a possibility.”
The following afternoon, police finally completed digital recovery from one of Judith’s old camcorder tapes.
Mercer asked Ethan and Thomas to come to the station.
I went too.
The footage had been recorded in October 1993.
The camera was hidden.
Thomas appeared on screen in Judith’s kitchen, arguing with her.
The image shook slightly, apparently from a device Thomas had concealed.
Judith was thirty-six.
Beautiful.
Controlled.
Almost unrecognizable except for her voice.
“You think taking Ethan makes you a father?” she asked.
“I’m not taking him from you. I’m filing for joint custody.”
“You’ll get nothing.”
“I know what you’ve been doing.”
“What exactly do you think you know?”
“The pills. The accounts. The records.”
Judith smiled.
Then she said something that caused every person in the room to become still.
“You should have learned from Rebecca.”
Thomas’s recorded face changed.
“Don’t say her name.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
The video ended thirty seconds later.
Mercer paused the screen.
“Who is Rebecca?”
Thomas looked pale.
“My sister.”
Ethan frowned.
“You had a sister?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to her?”
Thomas stared at the frozen image of Judith.
“She died in 1990.”
“How?”
Thomas swallowed.
“Everyone believed it was an accidental overdose.”
Mercer leaned forward.
“Everyone?”
Thomas looked at us.
“Except me.”
A new investigation began before sunset.
Rebecca Whitmore had been twenty-nine when she died.
She had been staying with Thomas and Judith after leaving an abusive marriage.
According to old reports, Rebecca had accidentally taken too much of a prescription sedative.
Judith had found her.
Judith had called 911.
Judith had also been the last person to prepare Rebecca a cup of tea.
The original investigation contained no allegation of wrongdoing.
But Thomas told police Rebecca had planned to testify for him in a financial dispute involving Judith.
Two weeks before her death, Rebecca told Thomas she believed Judith had been stealing money from the family trust.
Detective Mercer requested exhumation records and archived evidence.
The family story was becoming darker by the hour.
That evening, Thomas sat beside Ethan in the station hallway.
“I should have stopped her.”
Ethan looked at him.
“You didn’t know what she would become.”
Thomas shook his head.
“I knew enough.”
“So did I.”
Father and son looked at each other.
Different generations.
Same guilt.
I stood several feet away holding Lily’s hand.
My daughter was coloring a picture of three rabbits.
Two little rabbits.
One big rabbit.
She had drawn wings on the two smaller ones.
I nearly broke.
Then her crayon stopped.
“Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“Who’s that man?”
She pointed through the glass entrance doors.
A man stood across the street.
Baseball cap.
Gray jacket.
Watching the station.
The moment I looked at him, he turned away.
Mercer saw him too.
“Stay here.”
He ran outside with another officer.
The man disappeared between two buildings.
Police found no one.
But a traffic camera captured the license plate of a car leaving the alley.
Registered owner:
Malcolm Reeves.
They found the car forty minutes later.
Empty.
On the passenger seat was a photograph.
Lily.
Taken that morning.
Outside the protected house.
May you like
Written across the back in black marker were five words.
JUDITH SAID FINISH THE JOB.
