Chapter 3 - WHAT WAS IN THE TEA
The name of the drug meant almost nothing to me at first.
"Doxylamine," Dr. Shah said.
I blinked at her.
"What is that?"
"It's an antihistamine commonly used as a sleep aid and also present in some over-the-counter products."
She held up one hand before I could panic.
"A small amount can be entirely innocent."
Detective Ortiz asked the next question.
"Did you take any sleep medication today?"
"No."
"Cold medicine?"
"No."
"Anything for nausea?"
I hesitated.
"My mother-in-law makes me tea."
The words sounded ridiculous the moment they left my mouth.
Dr. Shah did not laugh.
"What kind of tea?"
"She calls it pregnancy tea."
"Do you know what's in it?"
"Ginger, I think."
I searched my memory.
"Sometimes mint."
"Anything packaged?"
"She makes it herself."
Detective Ortiz looked at me.
"How often?"
"Most mornings."
"Do you feel sleepy afterward?"
That question stopped me.
I thought about the last three months.
The mornings when I could barely keep my eyes open during my commute.
The afternoons when my supervisor asked whether pregnancy was wearing me down.
The nights when Carter called me lazy because I fell asleep on the couch before cleaning the kitchen.
"Yes," I whispered.
Dr. Shah exchanged a look with Ortiz.
"Again," she said, "one positive screen does not prove anyone gave you anything intentionally."
"But you should preserve the information," Ortiz said.
Dr. Shah nodded.
"We already have."
After they left, I stared at the ceiling for a long time.
I tried to remember every cup Eleanor had handed me.
Every time she had stood in the kitchen doorway watching me drink.
Every time she had said it was good for the baby.
One memory came back with sudden clarity.
Three weeks earlier, I had poured half a mug into the sink because I was running late.
Eleanor had become strangely angry.
"I made that for you."
I had laughed and told her I appreciated it but could not finish.
She followed me into the hallway carrying the mug.
"Then take it with you."
I said I did not want tea in the car.
Her face hardened.
"You complain you're exhausted, and then you refuse the things people do to help you."
Carter walked downstairs during the argument.
He did not ask why his mother cared so much about a half-finished drink.
He looked at the mug.
Then at me.
"Just finish it, Rebecca."
I had.
I stood beside the front door and swallowed cold tea while both of them watched.
At the time, I thought the moment was merely controlling and absurd.
Now my stomach turned as I remembered how sleepy I became before reaching work.
I had pulled into a gas station and sat for ten minutes because I did not trust myself to continue driving.
I never told Carter.
I knew he would use it as proof I should quit.
Another memory surfaced.
Eleanor had once switched my travel mug with a ceramic cup and insisted I drink at the table.
She said pregnant women needed routines.
Carter had been unusually cheerful that morning.
He made toast.
He kissed my forehead.
Then, at dinner, he accused me of being lazy because I had fallen asleep during my lunch break.
I pressed both hands against my face.
The drug screen did not suddenly turn every tired day into proof.
But it changed the questions I was allowed to ask about them.
My father returned twenty minutes later.
I told him.
He sat completely still.
"Do not draw conclusions yet," he said.
"You sound like a judge."
"I am trying very hard not to sound like a father."
That frightened me more.
"What does the father want to say?"
He looked toward the door.
"The father wants to go back to your house with a shovel."
Despite everything, I smiled.
"The judge is more useful."
"Usually."
A nurse came in and told me I could see Noah if I could tolerate being moved in a wheelchair.
Pain or no pain, I would have crawled.
The NICU was quieter than I expected.
Not silent.
Machines beeped softly.
Air systems hummed.
Nurses spoke in low voices.
But the room had none of the chaos from surgery.
Everything felt precise.
Controlled.
Delicate.
Noah was in an incubator beneath a warm light.
He was so small that my brain refused to connect him with the baby who had been kicking inside me only hours earlier.
His skin was reddish and translucent.
A tiny cap covered his head.
Tape held thin tubes against his face.
One hand rested near his cheek.
His fingers were smaller than the top joint of mine.
I put my hand through the opening in the incubator.
A nurse guided one finger beneath Noah's palm.
His hand closed weakly around me.
That was when I cried harder than I had all night.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
The NICU nurse looked at me.
"For what?"
I could not explain it.
For staying.
For hoping Carter would change.
For believing I could absorb enough cruelty to keep it away from my child.
For being wrong.
"He is doing what a twenty-nine-weeker is supposed to do," the nurse said.
"He's fighting."
I looked through the incubator wall.
"So am I."
When I returned to my room, Detective Ortiz was waiting again.
This time, she had another officer with her and a sealed evidence bag.
Inside it was my broken phone.
"We got a warrant to preserve data from the device," she said.
"Why a warrant? It's my phone."
"Because your husband is claiming marital ownership of some of the account information, and I don't want his attorney arguing later that we took shortcuts."
That sounded exactly like the kind of argument Carter would make.
"Did he get an attorney?"
Ortiz's mouth flattened.
"His uncle came to the station."
"Malcolm?"
"Malcolm Hale."
I shut my eyes.
Of course he had.
Carter worshiped his uncle.
Malcolm had spent thirty years building a reputation as a ruthless prosecutor who knew every judge, every detective, and every clerk worth knowing.
At family dinners, he told stories about defendants who broke under cross-examination.
He liked to say most people lost because they panicked before the real fight began.
"What did he do?"
"He identified himself as counsel."
Ortiz paused.
"Then he identified himself as a senior prosecutor."
"That sounds like Malcolm."
"He suggested arresting Carter tonight would be an overreaction."
My father, standing near the window, did not move.
Ortiz glanced toward him.
"For the record, sir, your office has not contacted us."
Dad nodded once.
"And it won't."
Ortiz turned back to me.
"We are making our own decisions."
"Did you arrest Carter?"
"Not yet."
My stomach dropped.
"Why not?"
"Because he left the house before we had enough to hold him on the more serious conduct we're investigating."
I stared at her.
"You let him leave?"
"He wasn't free to interfere with you."
She spoke calmly.
"There is an emergency protective order being processed, and security has his name and photograph."
"Where did he go?"
"We don't know yet."
That answer sat heavily in the room.
Ortiz opened her notebook.
"I need to ask about your house."
"What about it?"
"Any cameras?"
"Carter disconnected the obvious ones after we moved in."
"Why?"
"He said cameras made the house feel like a prison."
The irony was so bitter I almost laughed.
Ortiz wrote something.
"Doorbell camera?"
"No."
"Security system?"
I thought about it.
"There is an old system from before we bought the house."
"Active?"
"I don't know."
Then I remembered something.
A blinking green light above the pantry door.
Something I had stopped noticing months ago.
"Wait."
Ortiz looked up.
"The insurance company required a camera near the back entrance after Carter's car was broken into last year."
"Where does it point?"
"The pantry and part of the kitchen."
Her pen stopped.
"Who has access?"
"Carter set it up."
"Cloud account?"
"I think so."
Dad spoke for the first time.
"Do you know the provider?"
I pictured the little sticker on the router box.
"Sentinel Home."
Ortiz was already standing.
"I'm going to make a call."
She left the room.
Dad looked at me.
"You remembered that at the right time."
"If Carter remembered it first, he'll delete it."
"Maybe."
"Dad."
"Digital evidence is not as easy to erase as people imagine."
I stared at him.
"You say that like you've sentenced people who tried."
"I have read many unfortunate explanations."
For the next hour, nothing happened.
Then everything happened at once.
A social worker arrived to discuss a safe discharge plan.
A hospital administrator asked whether Carter had any authorized access to my chart.
A uniformed officer delivered the temporary protective order for me to review.
Dr. Shah came back with another update on Noah.
He was stable but still required respiratory support.
Then Detective Ortiz returned.
Her expression had changed.
She shut the hospital door behind her.
"Sentinel preserved the account."
My heart began to pound.
"Was there video?"
"Yes."
My father looked away, as if deliberately giving me privacy despite standing six feet from the bed.
Ortiz pulled out her phone.
"The camera doesn't show the dining table clearly."
"Does it show the counter?"
"Part of it."
She hesitated.
"It also has audio."
My mouth went dry.
"Did you watch it?"
"A short section."
"What does it show?"
Ortiz's face gave me the answer before she spoke.
"It shows Mrs. Hale moving toward you."
I stopped breathing.
"It shows contact."
My fingers curled into the blanket.
"And after you go down, it records your husband refusing to let you call 911."
My father closed his eyes.
For years, Carter had counted on every ugly moment disappearing the second it ended.
Now one of them had not disappeared.
Ortiz continued.
"But that isn't the part I came back to ask you about."
I looked at her.
"What part?"
She unlocked her phone and held up a still image from earlier that afternoon.
The pantry camera showed Eleanor standing alone in the kitchen.
On the counter in front of her was my blue ceramic mug.
In her hand was a small white tablet.
I stared at the image until my vision blurred.
"Detective," I whispered.
"Can you tell me what she's doing?"
Ortiz zoomed in.
Eleanor's hand was positioned over the mug.
May you like
Beside it sat the wooden pill crusher she kept near her vitamins.
"That's what we're going to find out."
