Chapter 3
Officer Martinez asked Diane to wait outside.
She refused.
“I’m his mother.”
“And this is an active investigation involving a child.”
“You don’t have the right—”
“Ma’am.”
His voice became harder.
“You can wait outside voluntarily, or another officer can escort you.”
Diane looked at Daniel.
He didn’t defend her.
For once.
She gave me a long, poisonous stare before walking away.
The door closed.
I looked at my husband.
“Three appointments.”
Daniel nodded.
“Start talking.”
He sat down.
I remained standing.
I didn’t want him comfortable.
“The first test was a home kit,” he said.
“When?”
“Six months ago.”
Six months.
Lily had just turned three.
I thought about every birthday picture.
Every night Daniel tucked her into bed.
Every morning he called her his princess.
Six months of looking at our daughter while secretly questioning whether she was his.
“Why?”
“The email.”
“Show it to me.”
“I deleted it.”
Of course he had.
“What did it say?”
Daniel looked ashamed.
“That you were seeing somebody around the time Lily was conceived.”
“I wasn’t.”
“I know.”
“You know now?”
“No. I mean—I should have known then.”
I laughed bitterly.
Dr. Patel glanced between us and quietly left the room.
Officer Martinez stayed.
Daniel continued.
“The email included a date. The night of your college reunion.”
I remembered immediately.
I had gone to dinner with three old friends.
Daniel had been invited.
He decided to stay home because he had a deadline.
I got home before midnight.
“You thought I conceived Lily that night?”
“No.”
“Then what did you think?”
“My mother kept saying the timing was strange.”
I turned toward the door.
“Your mother.”
Daniel’s shoulders dropped.
“She got inside my head.”
“No. You let her.”
He had no answer.
“The home test came back incomplete,” he said.
“Because?”
“The sample wasn’t good enough.”
“How did you get Lily’s sample?”
Daniel hesitated.
I felt rage rising.
“How?”
“I swabbed her cheek while she was sleeping.”
My eyes filled.
He had stood over our sleeping daughter and stolen DNA from her because he trusted an anonymous email more than his wife.
“What about the second appointment?”
“Mom found a private genetics office.”
“And you took Lily?”
“I went with them.”
“Did you know she was drugged?”
Daniel rubbed his hands together.
“Mom said she gave her children’s allergy medicine because Lily was scared.”
I stared at him.
“You saw your daughter sedated and you didn’t ask questions?”
“She was awake.”
“Was she acting normal?”
“No.”
The answer came almost too quietly to hear.
“She was groggy.”
Officer Martinez wrote something down.
Daniel saw him.
His face tightened.
“I didn’t understand.”
“You didn’t want to understand,” I said.
He looked at me.
That hit him.
Good.
“Then why was there a third appointment?”
“The second test showed I’m Lily’s father.”
I stopped.
The entire room seemed to freeze.
“What?”
“Ninety-nine point nine nine percent.”
I stared at him in disbelief.
“So after you proved she was yours, you did it again?”
“No.”
“Then why was there a third appointment?”
Daniel looked toward the door.
Officer Martinez said, “Mr. Carter.”
Daniel lowered his head.
“Because my mother said the result created another problem.”
I felt cold all over again.
“What problem?”
He said nothing.
I stepped closer.
“Daniel.”
“The lab offered extended family matching.”
I didn’t understand.
“What does that mean?”
“She submitted another sample.”
“Whose?”
Daniel’s lips trembled.
“Hers.”
I stared at him.
“Your mother tested herself against Lily?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
“To confirm Lily was her biological granddaughter.”
My first instinct was to laugh because it sounded ridiculous.
Then I saw his face.
“What did it say?”
Daniel looked like a man standing at the edge of a cliff.
“The lab said the relationship didn’t match.”
I blinked.
“What relationship?”
“It said Mom was almost certainly not Lily’s biological paternal grandmother.”
For a moment, I couldn’t understand the words.
Then I did.
If Daniel was Lily’s biological father…
And Diane was not genetically related to Lily…
Then Diane might not be genetically related to Daniel.
I whispered, “You’re not her son?”
Daniel’s eyes flooded with tears.
“She says I am.”
“DNA says otherwise.”
“She says the lab made a mistake.”
I stared toward the hallway.
At the woman who had controlled our family for eight years.
At the woman who had insulted my cooking, criticized my parenting, rearranged my kitchen, chosen our Christmas traditions, and told me repeatedly that Lily had the Carter nose.
“Why would she keep testing Lily?”
Daniel shook his head.
“She wanted a different result.”
A horrifying thought entered my mind.
“Did she want the test to say Lily wasn’t yours?”
He didn’t answer.
That was an answer.
Officer Martinez leaned forward.
“Mr. Carter, did your mother ever ask you to alter, replace, or contaminate a sample?”
Daniel immediately said, “No.”
Too quickly.
I stared at him.
“Daniel.”
“No.”
“Look at me.”
He did.
And I knew.
“What did she ask you to do?”
His face collapsed.
“She said we should repeat the test using a new sample because the clinic might have mixed something up.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Daniel began crying.
I felt nothing.
Not yet.
“She asked me to bring one of my cousin Michael’s toothbrushes.”
I stopped breathing.
Officer Martinez’s pen stopped moving.
“Why?” I whispered.
“She said we could test it against Lily.”
It took me a second.
Then I understood.
Diane wanted a male Carter relative’s DNA.
If Michael’s DNA matched Lily in some misleading way, maybe Diane could manipulate a report.
Maybe she could build a story that protected herself.
“You were going to fake Lily’s paternity?”
“No!”
“You were going to use another man’s DNA in a paternity test!”
“I didn’t do it.”
“You considered it.”
“I told her no.”
“When?”
“After the second appointment.”
“Then why was there a third?”
Daniel wiped his face.
“Mom went without me.”
My stomach dropped.
“With Lily?”
“I thought Lily was at daycare.”
“She wasn’t.”
“No.”
“When was this?”
“Two weeks ago.”
I remembered that day.
I had been at work.
Daniel told me daycare had called because a pipe burst in one classroom and his mother offered to pick Lily up.
I had thanked Diane.
I had actually sent her a text saying:
YOU SAVED US TODAY.
I wanted to vomit.
“Was that daycare story real?”
Daniel looked down.
“No.”
I slapped my hand against the wall.
Officer Martinez stepped forward.
“Mrs. Carter.”
I backed away immediately.
“I’m okay.”
I wasn’t.
But I wasn’t going to give Diane one second of footage showing me losing control again.
Lily moved in the bed.
Her eyes opened.
“Mommy?”
I rushed to her.
“I’m here.”
“Daddy?”
Daniel stood.
Lily saw him and immediately reached for me instead.
That broke him.
“Daddy’s right here, bug.”
Lily tucked her face into my side.
Then she whispered, “Daddy said don’t tell.”
Daniel went white.
I slowly turned.
“Don’t tell what?”
Lily looked afraid.
“It’s okay,” I said softly. “You’re not in trouble.”
She looked at Daniel.
He started shaking his head.
Not at her.
At himself.
Like he knew what was coming.
“Daddy said Grandma would cry if I tell you about the doctor.”
I stared at my husband.
“You told our three-year-old to keep secrets from me.”
“I didn’t say it like that.”
“She’s three!”
“I was trying to protect her from the fighting.”
“You created the fighting.”
Officer Martinez asked Daniel to step outside.
Daniel resisted.
“I’m her father.”
“Then act like it and give her space.”
He left.
I held Lily until she fell asleep again.
Twenty minutes later, the toxicology results came back.
Dr. Patel closed the door before speaking.
“The substance appears to be a prescription sedative.”
My stomach twisted.
“Is she going to be okay?”
“We expect her to recover fully.”
I started crying with relief.
Then he continued.
“But there’s something concerning.”
“What?”
“The concentration in her system appears higher than we would expect from the small residue you described.”
I stared at him.
“You mean she swallowed more before I got home?”
“Possibly.”
“Or?”
He paused.
“Or she may have received a dose earlier.”
The world went quiet.
Earlier.
Before I came home.
Before I walked through that door.
Before I saw Diane forcing another piece into her mouth.
The pill I interrupted might not have been the first dose.
It might have been the second.
Officer Martinez returned.
I handed him my phone.
“Look at Daniel’s messages.”
He read them.
Then I said, “I want every camera recording from my house.”
Daniel and I had smart cameras.
Front door.
Back door.
Living room.
Nursery hallway.
But when I opened the app, I found something strange.
Most of that afternoon’s footage was gone.
Deleted.
Except Daniel had forgotten one thing.
The company automatically saved motion clips to a shared cloud account for thirty days.
An account registered under my email.
I logged in.
There were dozens of clips Daniel had deleted from the main app.
My hands trembled as I scrolled backward.
Then I saw one from two weeks earlier.
Diane walking out our front door.
Carrying Lily.
My daughter’s arms hung limp at her sides.
Her head rested unnaturally against Diane’s shoulder.
And twenty seconds later, Daniel walked out behind them.
He was holding Lily’s pink backpack.
The same day he claimed he had been at work.
I turned the phone toward Officer Martinez.
May you like
Daniel hadn’t just known.
He had gone with them.
