Chapter 9 - What Was in My Coffee
The laboratory called Detective Ruiz at 9:14 the next morning.
She came to my house in person instead of telling me over the phone.
That choice frightened me before she said a word.
Lily was asleep upstairs.
Mason sat at the kitchen table drawing a race car while Dana Mercer spoke with him about starting temporary counseling.
Ruiz asked me to step onto the back porch.
"The coffee tested positive."
I looked at her.
"For what?"
"A prescription sedating agent."
The same coldness I had felt in the hospital returned.
"The same medication Lily had in her system?"
"Same drug class."
"Same exact drug?"
"Yes."
I gripped the porch railing.
The yard looked painfully normal.
Carol's hydrangeas were still blooming near the fence.
A blue jay landed on the bird feeder.
Somewhere down the street, a lawn mower started.
I had drunk coffee in this house every morning without knowing my own son might have been putting medication into it.
"How much was in the container?"
"Enough that repeated use could cause drowsiness, slowed thinking, dizziness, memory problems, and other effects."
"Could it have killed me?"
Ruiz did not pretend to be a doctor.
"The medical consultant said the risk would depend on dose and other factors."
"That means yes."
"It means it was dangerous."
I stared at the back door.
"How long?"
"We don't know."
"The video shows him doing it once."
"Yes."
"But the cameras were here six months."
"Yes."
I remembered mornings when the room had seemed foggy.
I remembered forgetting why I had walked downstairs.
I remembered sitting at the kitchen table after breakfast and waking with my head on my folded arms.
Brian had noticed those moments.
Of course he had.
He had been watching them.
Worse, he had caused at least some of them.
"He was poisoning the evidence."
Ruiz looked at me.
"That's one way to describe it."
"He needed me to look impaired."
"Yes."
"So he made me impaired."
"Potentially."
I almost snapped at her for using the word again.
Then I stopped.
She was not minimizing what happened.
She was protecting the case from the same thing Brian depended on: people saying more than they could prove.
"Has he been arrested?"
"Not yet on this allegation."
"Why?"
"Because the video does not show what substance he put in the container."
"The container has the drug."
"And defense counsel will argue someone else could have contaminated it later."
"Who?"
"They don't need a good answer yet."
She held my gaze.
"They only need enough uncertainty to fight a warrant or charge."
I looked toward the kitchen window.
"So what do you need?"
"A clean chain connecting Brian to the substance."
"The blue bottle."
"That would help."
"Mason said Brian took it."
"We haven't found it."
"Search his hotel."
"We did."
"His car?"
"We did."
"Marissa's things?"
"We did."
"Then where is it?"
Ruiz's eyes narrowed slightly.
"That's what worries me."
She took an evidence photograph from her folder.
It showed the kitchen at Brian's house after the first search.
The orange prescription bottle sat on the counter inside a marked evidence circle.
"Look at the sink."
I leaned closer.
There was a damp ring beside the drain.
"What am I looking at?"
"Residue."
"From what?"
"The lab found trace amounts of the same medication in the sink trap."
"Someone poured it out."
"Maybe."
"Jenna."
"That's a possibility."
I remembered Mason saying Jenna went to the office and then stood outside the closet.
"She went there to clean up."
"She admits retrieving paperwork."
"Not the medication."
"No."
Ruiz's phone rang.
She answered, listened, and turned away from me.
"When?"
A pause.
"Keep him there."
She ended the call.
"Who?"
"Howard Pike."
My heartbeat quickened.
"What about him?"
"He just walked into the district attorney's office with counsel."
"To surrender?"
"To negotiate."
"Of course."
I laughed once.
"He helps destroy my family and now he wants a deal."
"We don't know what he's offering."
"The missing memory card."
Ruiz's expression told me she had thought the same thing.
At 11:40 a.m., Evelyn Shaw arrived with more news.
The forged transfer documents had been temporarily blocked by emergency court order.
My house remained mine.
Carol's cabin remained in the trust.
No title company could transfer either property while the fraud investigation continued.
I should have felt relieved.
Instead, I kept thinking about the coffee.
Evelyn noticed.
"You look worse than yesterday."
"They found the drug in my coffee."
Her face changed.
"Ruiz told you?"
"Yes."
"Then we're arranging a full medical examination."
"I'm fine."
"That's not the point."
"I'm standing here."
"The point is documenting any possible exposure and its effects."
I rubbed my forehead.
"More papers."
"This time they work for you."
I looked at her.
"Mason said adults with papers always win."
"Adults with truthful papers have a better chance."
She opened her briefcase.
"There's something else."
"I don't like that sentence anymore."
"Brian filed an appeal of the temporary placement order."
"Already?"
"He wants expedited review."
"On what basis?"
"He says law enforcement has contaminated the children's statements."
"He locked one of them in a closet."
"And he is denying it."
"There were photographs."
"He says Mason locked himself in during a tantrum."
I stared at her.
"With the key in the pantry?"
"Cresswell claims the key may have been moved after the fact."
"By me?"
"He hasn't said yet."
"He doesn't have to."
I walked to the sink and looked at the spot where the old coffee container used to sit.
"They are going to keep throwing dirt until somebody stops seeing the children underneath it."
Evelyn closed her briefcase.
"Then our job is to keep the children visible."
At noon, I made lunch.
Mason wanted peanut butter and jelly.
Lily wanted toast with honey.
Neither child wanted to sit with their back to the hallway.
I moved the chairs.
No discussion.
No questions.
After lunch, Lily asked if she could call her mother.
The request surprised me.
"You miss her?"
Lily nodded.
Then shook her head.
Then started crying.
I sat beside her.
"Both can be true."
"What?"
"You can miss someone and still be afraid of them."
She wiped her face.
"Mom says family doesn't tell on family."
"Your grandma used to say family doesn't make you hide the truth."
Lily looked at the refrigerator.
One of Carol's handwritten recipe cards was still held there by a magnet.
"Grandma would be mad."
"At you?"
"At everybody."
I smiled sadly.
"Your grandma had enough anger for a whole neighborhood when she needed it."
That earned a tiny laugh.
Then Lily said:
"Mom took Grandma's box."
I stopped.
"What box?"
"The green one."
"From where?"
"The cabin."
Mason turned from his sandwich.
"I saw that too."
I stared at both children.
"When were you at the cabin?"
"Three weeks ago," Mason said.
"With your parents?"
He nodded.
"They told us not to tell you."
"Why?"
"Dad said the cabin was going to be ours soon anyway."
My mouth went dry.
Carol kept a small green metal box in the cabin bedroom closet.
She called it her storm box.
It held copies of insurance policies, old letters, spare keys, and whatever documents she considered too important to leave in town.
After she died, I had never opened it.
I could not bring myself to go through every private thing she had saved.
"What did Marissa do with it?"
Lily shrugged.
"Put it in the car."
"Did Brian know?"
"Yes."
"Did you see what was inside?"
Mason nodded slowly.
"There were envelopes."
"Anything written on them?"
"One had Dad's name."
My chest tightened.
Carol had written Brian letters over the years, but she usually mailed or handed them to him.
She had never told me about one hidden at the cabin.
"What happened to the box?"
"Mom put it in the garage when we got home."
"Their garage?"
"Yes."
I called Ruiz.
She went silent when I described the box.
"We didn't recover a green metal box."
"Then they moved it."
"Possibly."
"Search Jenna's place."
"Already underway."
"The hotel?"
"Nothing."
"Howard Pike?"
"We are waiting to hear what he offers."
I looked at Mason.
"Could the box be at the lake resort?"
He shook his head.
"Dad took it somewhere before the meeting."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
Lily spoke softly.
"I do."
We both turned.
"Where?"
She pointed toward the old family photograph on my mantel.
It showed Carol and me standing in front of a brick building downtown on our fortieth anniversary.
Carol was laughing because the wind had blown her hair across my face.
Behind us was a sign.
WHITAKER STORAGE AND LOCK.
The self-storage facility my brother had owned before he died.
May you like
Lily whispered:
"Mom said, 'Put Carol's secrets where Carol used to keep everything else.'"
