The sergeant read the first page. Then the second.
“Who wrote these?”
“Her physician. And me. I have been documenting episodes for the baby’s safety.”
“My physician never wrote those,” I said.
Victoria turned slowly toward me, pity glowing on her face. “You see? She does not remember.”
The sentence landed harder than a slap.
For months she had moved my keys, canceled my appointments, hidden mail, changed times, denied conversations, and then watched me doubt myself. Every frightened question I had asked had become another entry in her file. Every time I cried because I could not reach Alejandro had become proof that I was unstable.
She had converted my fear into evidence against me.
Quinn handed the notes to another officer. “Bag everything on the table.”
Victoria’s tears stopped for half a heartbeat.
Then the front gate opened.
Our neighbor, Mrs. Alvarez, hurried up the walkway in slippers and a raincoat thrown over her nightgown. She was seventy-three, sharp-eyed, and incapable of whispering.
“I saw the whole thing through the kitchen window,” she announced.
Victoria’s face hardened. “You were spying?”
“I was pruning my basil.”
“In the rain?”
“It needed pruning.”
Despite everything, a sound almost escaped me—half laugh, half sob.
Mrs. Alvarez pointed toward Victoria. “She came in carrying a black case and that iron. Elena was already seated. Then a man arrived through the side gate. Tall, gray coat, military haircut. He handed Victoria an envelope and left.”
Alejandro’s expression changed.
“What man?” Quinn asked.