Chapter 4
I closed Chloe’s door before Mom could hear anything else.
But Officer Hernandez had heard enough.
So had the doctor.
“What pink juice?” I asked.
Chloe picked at the tape holding her IV.
“The medicine Grandma gave me.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
Mom had come to my house before I left for work.
She had carried breakfast from Chloe’s favorite bakery.
She said she wanted to help Rachel settle into babysitting.
I had been grateful.
That memory now made me sick.
“What did Grandma say it was?”
“Strawberry vitamins.”
“Did it taste like strawberries?”
Chloe shook her head.
“It tasted bad. Aunt Rachel put more in my orange juice after Grandma left.”
I fought to keep my voice steady.
“Did Grandma see Aunt Rachel do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did they talk about it?”
Chloe looked toward the door.
“They argued in the kitchen.”
“What did they say?”
“Aunt Rachel said it wasn’t enough.”
My blood turned cold.
“What did Grandma say?”
“She said, ‘I only need her sleepy, not sick.’”
I sat beside the bed because my legs would no longer hold me.
The doctor crouched near Chloe.
“You’re doing a very good job. Do you remember anything else?”
Chloe’s chin trembled.
“Grandma told me Mommy might have to go away.”
My eyes burned.
“She lied to you.”
“She said I would live in her big house.”
“You’re coming home with me.”
“She said you didn’t want me anymore.”
I pulled Chloe into my arms.
“That will never be true. Do you hear me? Never.”
She began to cry.
The sound hurt, but it also gave me hope.
When I found her in the garage, she had been too weak to make tears.
Now they soaked my shoulder.
“I tried to stay awake,” she whispered. “I knew you would find me.”
“I will always find you.”
The door opened.
Officer Hernandez stood outside.
“Ms. Carter, we need to speak with your mother.”
“Not near Chloe.”
“We’ll move her downstairs.”
I looked at the doctor.
“Can you document everything Chloe said?”
“Already done.”
Hernandez nodded to his partner.
They approached Mom.
She stepped backward.
“What is happening?”
“We need you to come with us while we investigate how a controlled medication entered your granddaughter’s system.”
Mom’s face went white.
“I gave her a children’s vitamin.”
“Chloe says you called it strawberry medicine.”
“She misunderstood.”
“She also heard you tell Rachel that you needed her sleepy.”
Mom looked at me through the glass.
The hatred on her face erased my last hope that there had been some terrible misunderstanding.
“You coached her,” she said.
I opened the door.
“She is six years old.”
“You’ve been poisoning her against me for years.”
“You drugged my daughter.”
“I gave her a harmless sleep aid because Rachel said Chloe was anxious.”
Officer Hernandez raised a hand.
“Do not say anything else until you have an attorney.”
But Mom could never stop when she thought she was losing.
“Rachel was supposed to drive her to my house,” she said. “Chloe gets carsick. I wanted her calm.”
“You wanted her quiet,” I said.
“That is not a crime.”
“Drugging a child without medical permission is a crime,” the doctor said.
Mom turned on him.
“It was half a tablet dissolved in juice.”
The hallway fell silent.
She had just admitted it.
Her hand flew to her mouth.
Officer Hernandez’s voice became firm.
“Diane Carter, turn around and place your hands behind your back.”
Mom stared at him.
“You cannot arrest me.”
“I can, and I am.”
She looked toward the elevator as if someone might arrive and rescue her.
No one did.
Hernandez placed the cuffs around her wrists.
Mom’s composure cracked.
“Olivia, stop this.”
“I didn’t put the cuffs on you.”
“Call my attorney.”
“You have a phone call at the station.”
“Rachel will fall apart if she hears I’ve been arrested.”
I looked at Chloe through the glass.
“She should have thought about that before she abandoned my child.”
“You are enjoying this.”
I stepped closer.
“My daughter is in a hospital bed. Nothing about this gives me joy.”
Mom lowered her voice.
“If you testify, you’ll regret it.”
Officer Hernandez guided her toward the elevator.
She twisted back.
“Mason is coming, Olivia. He has rights you cannot erase.”
The doors closed on her face.
Grant remained near the nurses’ station.
“You should go,” I told him.
“I want to help.”
“You helped them follow me.”
“I didn’t know what they were planning.”
“You knew they wanted my daughter.”
“I thought it was about concerns over the trust.”
“And that made spying on a six-year-old acceptable?”
“No.”
His answer was immediate.
“No, it didn’t.”
He reached into his bag and removed a small external drive.
“This contains every photograph, recording, email, and instruction they sent me.”
I stared at it.
“Why are you giving it to me?”
“Because they asked me to lie in court tomorrow.”
“What lie?”
“That I saw you leave Chloe alone overnight.”
My stomach clenched.
“Did you?”
“No. I saw you leave at eight for a night shift after Rachel arrived at seven forty. Rachel left fifteen minutes later, but your neighbor, Mrs. Alvarez, entered the house before she did.”
“Mrs. Alvarez stayed with Chloe until morning.”
“I know. I photographed her leaving.”
“Then why would Mom think you’d lie?”
“She offered me fifty thousand dollars.”
I looked through the glass at Chloe.
“My mother was willing to spend fifty thousand to steal almost three million.”
Grant nodded.
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“Rachel didn’t hire me first.”
“Who did?”
“Mason.”
The name struck like a slap.
“He contacted me six months ago. He wanted information about the trust.”
“How did he know about it?”
“Your mother found him.”
Mom had spent years telling me Mason was worthless.
She had said Chloe was better without him.
Then Dad died and left Chloe money.
Suddenly Mason had become useful.
“Where is he?”
“Nashville.”
“How long?”
“Three weeks.”
“Why hasn’t he contacted me?”
“Because the petition was supposed to be granted before you knew he was here.”
“What would happen after that?”
“Your mother would become guardian. Mason would file for parental rights. Then they planned to argue that Chloe should live with him.”
“And Rachel?”
Grant’s jaw tightened.
“Rachel expected to marry him.”
For a moment, I could not understand the words.
“Marry Mason?”
“They’ve been seeing each other.”
I gripped the edge of the nurses’ desk.
Rachel had met Mason when I was twenty-three.
She had been a bridesmaid at our wedding.
She had held newborn Chloe in the hospital.
She had sat beside me after he left and called him a monster.
Now she planned to marry him.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“You investigate people for a living.”
“About a year, according to their messages.”
A year.
Every family dinner.
Every birthday.
Every time Rachel asked whether Mason had called.
She already knew the answer because she had been with him.
“Show me.”
Grant hesitated.
“Please.”
He opened his tablet and accessed the drive.
The first photograph showed Rachel and Mason entering a hotel.
The date was eight months earlier.
The next showed them outside Mom’s house.
Then came a picture of Mason holding Rachel’s hand in a parking lot.
I felt no jealousy.
Whatever I had loved in Mason had died years ago.
But betrayal still burned.
Rachel had not only chosen the man who abandoned my daughter.
She had helped him return to take Chloe’s future.
Grant opened an email.
From: Diane Carter.
Once guardianship is approved, Mason will petition for custody. Rachel’s marriage to him will create the stable two-parent home the judge wants. Olivia’s schedule and emotional history will work against her.
I looked at him.
“What emotional history?”
“Your mother sent records from the therapist you saw after Mason left.”
Those sessions had been private.
Only one person knew the therapist’s name.
Mom.
“I had postpartum depression,” I said. “I got treatment. I recovered.”
“They planned to call it a continuing psychiatric condition.”
Rage rose through me.
Every vulnerable truth I had trusted Mom with had become ammunition.
Grant scrolled farther.
A message from Rachel appeared.
Tomorrow has to work. Once we control the trust, Mason gets his business money, Mom saves the house, and I finally get the life Olivia stole from me.
I read it twice.
“What life did I steal?”
Grant shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
But I did.
Rachel believed everything good in my life belonged to her.
Dad’s trust.
My career.
My daughter.
Even the man who had betrayed me.
A nurse called my name.
“Chloe is asking for you.”
I took the drive.
“I’m keeping this.”
“You should give it to the police.”
“I will after I make copies.”
Grant nodded.
As I turned away, he said, “There’s one more thing.”
I looked back.
“The guardianship hearing is at nine tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Your mother’s attorney plans to tell the judge you caused Chloe’s hospitalization.”
I stared at him.
“How?”
“They are going to say you gave her the sedative.”
“That’s insane.”
“They have a witness.”
“Who?”
Grant looked toward the elevator.
The doors opened.
Mason stepped out.
He looked older than the man who had left me, but I recognized the confident smile.
A child-services investigator walked beside him.
May you like
Mason saw me and opened his arms as if we were old friends.
“Olivia,” he said. “I came as soon as I heard what you did to our daughter.”
