Chapter 13 - Anna Wasn't There to Defend Herself
The revision date was unmistakable. Anna had been buried for fourteen days when someone updated the document and preserved her old signature beneath the new language.
"That doesn't automatically prove who changed it," Detective Shah said when I brought her the copy. "But it gives us a trail."
She requested the original file history from Briarwood's document provider. I signed a formal statement about the night I approved the recent budget packet without reading the alarm attachment.
"You understand this may expose you to civil liability," she said.
"Yes."
"Then why sign it?"
"Because telling the truth about Nora isn't enough if I hide what I did."
At home, Lily wouldn't let me close the bathroom door while she brushed her teeth. She stood beside me and asked whether water could pull people down through the drain. I told her we could talk with her doctor or a swim professional whenever she wanted.
"I'm not going back," she said.
"You don't have to."
"Not ever?"
"You get to decide when you're ready."
She nodded, but the tension in her shoulders stayed. In Anna's old photograph on the hallway wall, Lily was three and laughing with water up to her knees. I had no idea how long it would take for that kind of joy to return.
Grace found another letter in Anna's files, this one addressed to Peter. It described a planned safety audit and a missing payment for gate repairs.
"If I cannot verify the work," Anna had written, "I will request outside oversight and suspend children's access until the hazards are corrected."
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There was a handwritten note at the bottom: VIVIAN SAID I WAS BEING DIFFICULT. ASK PETER FOR THE ACTUAL INVOICES.
That evening Peter appeared at my front door with a cardboard box. "These are the invoices she told me to destroy," he said.
