Chapter 11 - The Signature He Couldn't Explain
Ethan insisted the signature was his but the decision wasn't. "Vanessa put the screen in front of me. She said I was approving a school assessment."
Carla stared at him across the conference table. "Do you understand the difference between being deceived and choosing not to look?"
He looked at me for help. I kept my hands folded in my lap.
"I never wanted Lily taken away," he said.
"Then why didn't you ask where she was going?" I said.
He had no answer that would bring back a single night Lily spent afraid.
Detective Shah found the electronic trail. Ethan had signed from his own phone. Paige had supplied the document link. Vanessa had renamed it LILY SCHOOL UPDATE before sending it to him. The deception was real, but so was his responsibility.
At home Lily had started calling the spare bedroom "our room." She didn't demand toys or presents. She wanted to know where we kept clean towels and whether Noah would always have enough milk.
I told her that was an adult's job. Again. Every time I said it, I could see how strange it sounded to her.
When she finally fell asleep, I opened Grace's old recipe book. Tucked between pancakes and apple cake was a photograph of Lily as a baby, laughing in Ethan's arms. He had once known how to hold her without making her afraid.
A call interrupted me. The social worker said someone had reported that I was keeping the children from medical care. The allegation was anonymous. We arranged to show her the pediatrician's records and every scheduled appointment.
"These complaints are increasing," Tessa admitted. "Somebody is trying to make the placement unstable."
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The following morning a typed note appeared beneath my windshield wiper: YOU CAN'T PROTECT THEM FOREVER.
At the bottom was a tiny black eye drawn in pen.
