Chapter 3 - the notebook in the pantry)
The notebook was blue.
Ordinary.
Cheap.
The kind sold in packs at office-supply stores.
Detective Brooks placed it inside a clear evidence bag and photographed every page before allowing Daniel to see the copies.
By sunrise, Daniel was sitting in a private family consultation room at Westbrook Children’s Hospital staring at twenty-three printed pages.
Margaret had denied the notebook belonged to her.
That denial lasted exactly twelve minutes.
On page seventeen, she had written a telephone number Daniel recognized.
Her dentist.
But the notebook contained much more than appointments.
Dates.
Times.
Food.
Sleep.
Behavior.
Medication.
Daniel read the first entry.
March 6.
Restless after school. 2 ml at 5:20. Calmer by 6:00. Daniel noticed nothing.
Daniel stopped.
His fingers tightened around the page.
Claire sat opposite him.
Detective Brooks stood near the door.
Daniel forced himself to continue.
March 19.
Crying again. Said she wanted Daddy. 1.5 ml. Told Daniel stomach virus.
April 2.
Too argumentative. 2 ml.
April 18.
Would not stop asking about her mother. 2.5 ml.
Daniel looked up.
“What does that mean?”
Brooks asked, “Her mother?”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“My wife died when Elodie was two.”
Claire lowered her gaze.
Daniel’s wife, Sarah, had died in a car accident on a rain-soaked highway outside Philadelphia.
At least that was what Daniel had always called it.
An accident.
Sarah had been thirty-one.
Elodie remembered almost nothing about her except fragments Daniel worked hard to preserve.
A yellow sweater.
A song Sarah used to hum.
The smell of vanilla hand lotion.
A photograph beside Elodie’s bed.
Daniel turned another page.
May 4.
Questioned Sarah again. Redirected.
May 17.
Found photo box.
May 18.
Would not sleep. 3 ml.
Daniel stared at the words.
“Why was my mother tracking when Elodie asked about Sarah?”
Brooks did not answer.
She was thinking the same thing.
Daniel continued.
The notebook documented almost two years.
Illnesses Daniel had believed were random now appeared beside measured amounts.
One milliliter.
Two.
Three.
Sometimes no medication at all, only observations.
Daniel leaves at 7:40.
Daniel returns 9:10.
School pickup 3:15.
Claire leaned forward.
“This isn’t only medication tracking.”
“No,” Brooks said.
“It’s surveillance.”
Daniel felt sick.
Then he reached the last page.
There were only three lines.
Friday.
School exhibit.
Daniel home.
Do not administer.
Underneath that, another sentence had been written in darker ink.
She knows too much.
Daniel read it twice.
“What does she know?”
Brooks took the page.
“That’s what we need to determine.”
The door opened.
Dr. Patel entered.
“We have preliminary results from the bottles.”
Daniel stood.
“Well?”
“One contains a liquid antihistamine with sedative effects. The second contains a prescription anti-anxiety medication in diluted form.”
“Whose prescription?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Brooks said, “We’re tracing the pharmacy.”
Daniel looked toward Elodie’s room.
“Could those substances kill her?”
Patel answered carefully.
“In high enough doses or dangerous combinations, respiratory depression can occur.”
Daniel’s hands curled into fists.
Claire saw it.
“Daniel.”
He looked at her.
“Your daughter needs you stable.”
He wanted to tell her there was nothing stable left.
Instead he nodded.
Patel continued.
“Her levels are decreasing. She’s responding well. That’s the good news.”
“And the bad?”
“We found another substance.”
Silence.
“What substance?”
Patel glanced at Brooks.
“A cardiac medication.”
Daniel frowned.
“Elodie doesn’t take heart medication.”
“I know.”
Daniel’s chest tightened.
“How much?”
“Trace levels.”
“Meaning?”
“It may have been given hours or possibly more than a day earlier.”
Brooks asked, “Could the bottles contain it?”
“Lab will determine that.”
Daniel sat.
He looked at the notebook again.
Tonight’s entry said do not administer.
If Margaret had written it, then according to her own notes she had not intended to drug Elodie that evening.
Yet Elodie had still become sick.
Daniel looked at Brooks.
“You said you’re investigating the poisoning separately.”
“Yes.”
“You think someone else gave her something.”
“We are not ruling anything out.”
Daniel’s phone buzzed.
Noah Benson again.
This time the message contained a security-system export.
Daniel opened it.
Noah had highlighted one account.
M Hayes.
He had also highlighted something else.
The account had not been reactivated by Margaret’s phone.
It had been reactivated by Daniel’s own administrator credentials.
Daniel stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Brooks looked over.
“What?”
“The system says I restored her access.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“When?”
Daniel checked.
Six months earlier.
November 14.
2:08 a.m.
He remembered that night.
A business dinner.
Too much whiskey afterward.
He had arrived home around midnight.
But he had not touched the security system.
“Could someone use your password?”
“Yes.”
“Who knows it?”
“No one.”
Brooks gave him a look.
Daniel corrected himself.
“No one should.”
Claire suddenly spoke.
“What about Margaret?”
Daniel shook his head.
“She wouldn’t know my current password.”
Brooks asked, “What is it based on?”
Daniel hesitated.
Then his face changed.
Sarah.
The password was a combination of the year he met Sarah and a private nickname only three people had ever known.
Daniel.
Sarah.
Margaret.
He closed his eyes.
“She could guess it.”
Brooks wrote something.
Claire looked at the notebook.
“Why would Margaret drug Elodie but write do not administer on the night Elodie became sick?”
Nobody had an answer.
Until a soft voice came from the doorway.
“Because Grandma didn’t give it to me today.”
They turned.
Elodie stood there.
Barefoot.
Hospital blanket around her shoulders.
Stuffed rabbit tucked beneath one arm.
Daniel rushed toward her.
“What are you doing out of bed?”
“I heard you.”
He crouched.
“Elodie, sweetheart, who gave you medicine today?”
She shook her head.
“No medicine.”
Daniel looked at Claire.
Claire knelt beside them.
“What did you have before you felt sick?”
Elodie thought.
“Juice.”
“At home?”
She nodded.
“Who gave it to you?”
“I got it myself.”
Daniel frowned.
The apple juice carton had been sealed when he opened it.
He remembered hearing the plastic ring break.
Claire asked, “Anything else?”
Elodie looked uncertain.
“At school, Mrs. Green gave me a cookie.”
Daniel knew Mrs. Green.
Her second-grade teacher.
Brooks wrote the name.
“Anything else?”
Elodie hugged the rabbit.
Then she looked at Daniel.
“You said not to tell.”
His blood went cold.
“What did I say not to tell?”
Elodie looked confused.
“You told me it was our secret.”
Daniel stared at her.
“I never told you that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
“Elodie, I wasn’t in your room last night.”
She nodded.
“Yes, you were.”
Daniel looked at Brooks.
The detective’s face had changed.
“Elodie,” she said gently, “what did your dad do?”
Elodie looked at Daniel as though she did not understand why everyone seemed frightened.
“He gave me my vitamin drink.”
Daniel whispered, “What vitamin drink?”
“The little orange one.”
Daniel stood so quickly his chair fell backward.
There had been an orange bottle.
Months ago.
A pediatric supplement Sarah used to buy before she died.
Daniel had thrown the last expired bottle away years ago.
He looked at Elodie.
“Sweetheart, when you say I gave it to you, did you see my face?”
Elodie frowned.
Then slowly shook her head.
“It was dark.”
“Did he speak?”
She nodded.
“What did he say?”
Elodie looked down.
“Drink it, bug. Daddy’s here.”
Daniel felt the air leave his lungs.
Bug.
That was what Sarah had called Elodie.
Little bug.
Daniel had never used the nickname after Sarah died.
He could not.
It hurt too much.
Only one other person had heard Sarah use it constantly.
Margaret.
But Margaret was sixty-six.
Her voice sounded nothing like Daniel’s.
Unless the speaker had not been Margaret.
Daniel turned toward Brooks.
The detective already had her phone out.
“We need every camera angle from last night.”
Elodie tugged Daniel’s sleeve.
“There was something else.”
He looked at her.
“What?”
She whispered.
“Daddy smelled like Grandma’s basement.”
Daniel stared.
Margaret’s basement.
A place Elodie had not visited in nearly a year.
A place Daniel himself had not entered since Sarah’s funeral.
Detective Brooks said, “What is in your mother’s basement?”
May you like
Daniel slowly looked at her.
“I don’t know anymore.”
