Chapter 2 - Everybody Knew
Daniel carried Lily upstairs and locked the bedroom door.
He sat on the carpet with her in his lap while she drank water from a plastic cup with yellow ducks. Her hands still shook.
"Sweetheart, I need you to tell me something. Did Vanessa hurt you before tonight?"
Lily stared at the cup.
"When you go work."
"How?"
She touched her own arm, then her hair, then her stomach.
"Pinch. Pull. No dinner. Grandma says bad girls don't eat."
Daniel closed his eyes for one second. One second was all he allowed himself.
He had spent the last year telling himself Lily was adjusting badly after Emma's death. The tantrums when he traveled. The sudden fear of the dining room. The way she cried when Vanessa offered to bathe her.
He had called it grief.
Maybe because grief was easier than guilt.
A knock hit the door.
"Daniel," Margaret called. "Open this door before you make a stupid mistake."
He opened it only far enough to step into the hall.
Vanessa was behind her, holding ice to her elbow.
"You attacked me," Vanessa said. "In front of witnesses."
"Good. Then the witnesses can tell the police why my child was on the floor."
Margaret's expression changed.
Barely. But Daniel saw it.
Fear.
"Police aren't necessary," she said.
"Interesting. You were very comfortable ten seconds ago."
Paul cleared his throat downstairs. "Danny, maybe we should all calm down."
Daniel leaned over the railing. "Were you here when Vanessa hit Lily?"
Paul didn't answer.
"Were you?"
Renee whispered, "We didn't see everything."
"You saw enough to stay quiet."
He called 911.
Vanessa started crying before the dispatcher answered.
Margaret did not.
She took out her phone and sent one text.
Daniel caught only three words before she turned the screen away.
HE CAME EARLY.
A reply appeared almost instantly.
May you like
Then Margaret looked directly at Lily's locked bedroom door.
And smiled.
