Chapter 3 - THE NIGHT THEY TRIED TO TAKE MY DAUGHTER
—
The word Lily struck harder than every insult Tyler had thrown at me that night.
For a moment, I could hear nothing except the blood pounding in my ears.
I looked across the bridal suite at my daughter, who was sitting cross-legged on the carpet while another flower girl showed her how to fold a napkin into a swan.
She had no idea adults were downstairs turning her life into a weapon.
"Explain," I said.
Giovanni's voice stayed low.
"Not in front of her."
I crossed the room and asked the babysitter to keep the children occupied for a few minutes.
Then I stepped into the hallway with Giovanni and closed the door behind me.
"Now explain."
He handed me his phone again.
The photographs from the garage were still on the screen.
"Hotel security detained Tyler when they saw him at your car."
"Why was the door open?"
"He told them you asked him to get Lily's coat."
"Lily's coat is upstairs."
"They know that now."
I scrolled through the photos.
The prescription labels looked real enough to fool anyone at first glance.
My name.
My old address from the apartment Tyler and I had shared before he left.
My birth date.
"These are forged."
"Probably."
"Probably?"
"The bottles are real."
"I have never taken any of those medications."
"Then we prove it."
His answer came with the certainty of someone accustomed to problems becoming smaller once he decided they should.
Mine never had.
"You think this was about custody."
"I think someone wanted police to find controlled medication in a car registered to you while your daughter was with you."
"Why tonight?"
Giovanni looked toward the elevator.
"Because Tyler expected you to leave angry and alone."
I remembered the way he had approached me at the table.
Dance with me, Jess.
The insult about my apartment.
The precise cruelty about my bills.
Maybe he had not been trying only to hurt me.
Maybe he had been trying to provoke me.
"He wanted me upset."
"Yes."
"He wanted me to drive away crying."
"Possibly."
"And then what?"
Giovanni did not answer immediately.
That was answer enough.
"Someone calls the police and says I'm driving impaired with Lily in the car."
"That's one possibility."
My stomach turned.
"Tyler hasn't cared where Lily sleeps for five years."
"People often become interested in children when money or leverage becomes attached to them."
"What money?"
Giovanni's eyes sharpened.
"That is the question."
The elevator doors opened.
Sophia hurried out in her wedding dress with Nathan behind her.
She had kicked off her heels and was carrying them in one hand.
"Jess."
She reached me and grabbed both my arms.
"Security called Nathan."
I stared at her.
"Did you know Tyler was planning anything?"
"No."
"Did Mom?"
Sophia's face changed.
That terrified me.
"What?"
"Mom asked me yesterday whether Lily would be staying through the whole reception."
"Why?"
"She said Vanessa was worried you might keep her out too late."
My laugh came out brittle.
"Vanessa has met Lily four times."
Nathan stepped closer.
"There's more."
He held out his phone.
"Hotel security pulled footage from the garage."
The video showed Tyler entering through the service elevator twenty minutes before he approached me in the ballroom.
He was carrying the black pouch.
He looked directly at a camera before moving beneath it.
Then another man entered the frame.
My breath caught.
I knew him.
"That's Uncle Robert."
Sophia went pale.
Robert Hale was my mother's older brother.
He was also the man who had lectured me every Christmas about forgiving Tyler for the sake of family peace.
In the video, Robert handed Tyler something small.
Tyler placed it in his pocket.
Then they separated.
"What did he give him?" I whispered.
Nathan shook his head.
"Security can't tell."
Giovanni took the phone and watched the clip twice.
"A key fob."
"For what?"
"Your car, most likely."
I stared at him.
"Robert doesn't have a key to my car."
Sophia's voice was barely audible.
"Mom does."
I turned toward her.
For years, my mother had kept an emergency key because she picked Lily up from preschool twice a month when I worked late.
"No."
Sophia swallowed.
"Jess, I don't know what she knew."
"She gave Robert my key."
"We don't know that."
"Then where did he get it?"
The hallway seemed to tilt.
I pressed a hand against the wall.
Giovanni moved closer but did not touch me.
I appreciated that.
I hated that I appreciated anything about him right then.
"I need to talk to Tyler."
"No," Giovanni said.
I looked at him.
"Excuse me?"
"You need to talk to police."
"I need to know why he did this."
"And he needs you angry enough to say something he can use."
His tone remained calm.
"Do not give him what he planned for."
Sophia nodded reluctantly.
"He's right."
I looked from one of them to the other.
"I hate when strangers are right at my family crisis."
Nathan almost smiled.
Giovanni did not.
"Security has already called Chicago police."
My stomach clenched.
"Lily."
"She stays upstairs," Sophia said.
"With me if necessary."
I looked at her wedding dress.
"This is your reception."
She grabbed my hand.
"You are my sister."
The words nearly broke me.
I squeezed her fingers.
Then we went downstairs.
The ballroom had become louder, not quieter.
People sensed scandal the way sharks sensed blood.
Tyler stood near the service corridor with two hotel security officers.
Vanessa was beside him now.
My mother stood several feet away, wringing her hands.
Uncle Robert was nowhere in sight.
When Tyler saw me, anger flashed across his face.
Then it vanished beneath concern so fake it made my skin crawl.
"Jess, thank God."
I stopped ten feet away.
"Don't."
He held up both hands.
"This is a misunderstanding."
"You were inside my car."
"I was trying to help you."
"With forged prescription bottles?"
Vanessa jumped in.
"Nobody said they were forged."
I looked at her.
"Interesting."
She blinked.
"What?"
"I never told you what was in the bag."
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Tyler turned on her.
"Vanessa."
She recovered too late.
"I heard security talking."
One of the security officers shook his head.
"Ma'am, we didn't discuss the contents in the ballroom."
Vanessa's face drained of color.
My mother stepped toward me.
"Jessica, please."
"What?"
"This is Sophia's wedding."
I stared at her.
Of all the things she could have said, that was what she chose.
"Someone put drugs with my name on them in my car, Mom."
"Keep your voice down."
Something inside me snapped into perfect stillness.
"Did you give Uncle Robert my spare key?"
Her eyes moved away.
Sophia made a sound behind me.
"Mom."
My mother clasped her hands tighter.
"Robert said Tyler needed to get something from the car for Lily."
I felt the air leave my lungs.
"You gave him my key."
"I didn't know about any medication."
"But you knew Tyler wanted access to my car."
"He said it was for Lily."
"Tyler has not bought Lily a birthday card in three years."
"He is still her father."
There it was.
The sentence my mother had used like a hammer every time I tried to build a boundary.
He is still her father.
As if biology erased absence.
As if abandoning a pregnant wife became respectable after enough Christmases passed.
"Did you know he was planning to file for custody?"
My mother's face went white.
I saw the answer before she spoke.
"He only wanted visitation."
Sophia gasped.
I stepped back from my mother.
"You knew."
"Jessica, he came to me because you won't speak to him."
"He knows where I live."
"You blocked his number."
"After he called me drunk at two in the morning and told me Lily was ruining his life."
Tyler's face twisted.
"That was four years ago."
I turned toward him.
"And you've spent the years since proving you meant it."
A police officer entered the corridor.
Another followed.
The hotel manager met them and began explaining.
Vanessa gripped Tyler's arm.
My mother whispered my name again.
I ignored all three of them.
Giovanni stood several feet behind me, silent.
For once, I did not need someone to speak for me.
One of the officers approached.
"Ms. Hale?"
"Yes."
"We need to ask you some questions about the vehicle."
"Of course."
Tyler interrupted.
"Officer, I can explain."
The officer looked at him.
"You'll have your turn, sir."
Tyler's face tightened.
The interview took nearly forty minutes.
I answered every question.
I gave permission for the officers to inspect the car.
I explained that the prescriptions were not mine.
I offered to provide pharmacy records, medical records, and a toxicology screen.
Giovanni's attorney arrived halfway through the conversation.
I refused his representation at first.
"I'm not your client."
The attorney, a woman named Evelyn Shaw, gave me a level look.
"Mr. Fierro asked me to make sure nobody turns you into one before you understand what happened."
That sentence changed my mind.
By midnight, Tyler had not been arrested.
There was not yet enough evidence to prove he had placed the bottles in the car himself.
But the officers took the pouch, the bottles, the security footage, and statements from everyone involved.
They also took the key fob from Tyler's pocket.
It was my spare.
My mother cried when they photographed it.
I did not comfort her.
Vanessa stopped crying the moment she thought no one was looking.
I noticed that too.
Sophia wanted me and Lily to stay at the hotel.
I refused.
I wanted my own bed.
I wanted my daughter's stuffed rabbit on the pillow beside her.
I wanted something ordinary.
Giovanni walked us to a private garage exit.
Lily held my hand and yawned every few steps.
When she saw Giovanni again, she pointed at his loosened tie.
"Better."
He glanced down.
"I took your advice."
"Mommy says I give excellent advice."
"You do."
I unlocked a black SUV that hotel security had arranged as a courtesy.
Giovanni opened the rear door for Lily.
She climbed into the booster seat Sophia had borrowed from a cousin.
Then she looked at Giovanni.
"Are you coming?"
I nearly choked.
"No, bug."
Giovanni looked at me before answering her.
"Not unless your mother asks."
Lily considered this carefully.
"Mommy doesn't ask people for help."
I closed my eyes.
"Lily."
"Grandma says that."
Giovanni crouched so he was closer to her eye level without entering her space.
"Then maybe your mother needs better people to ask."
Lily nodded as if he had presented a reasonable business proposal.
"Okay."
I shut the door before my five-year-old negotiated anything else.
Giovanni walked around the SUV with me.
"You shouldn't go home tonight."
"I'm not going to your house."
"I didn't say mine."
"You thought it."
That almost earned a smile.
Then his expression turned serious.
"Tyler knew where your daughter would be tonight."
"So did my entire family."
"Someone had your car key."
"Not anymore."
"Someone had prescriptions made with your name on them."
I hated the truth in every sentence.
"What are you suggesting?"
"A hotel suite under another name."
"No."
"Jessica."
"I spent five years building a life where Lily knows that when I say we're going home, we go home."
My voice cracked despite me.
"I'm not letting Tyler take that from her too."
Giovanni studied me.
Then he nodded once.
"All right."
I waited for the argument.
It did not come.
"But a car will follow you."
"No."
"That part isn't a request."
I glared at him.
"You are very comfortable ordering a woman you met tonight."
"Only when she's about to make a dangerous decision out of principle."
"It's my principle."
"And your daughter in the back seat."
I hated him for being right again.
"One car."
"One car."
"No men standing outside my apartment."
"Across the street."
"Giovanni."
"Fine."
He paused.
"Half a block."
"You bargain like a criminal."
Something unreadable passed through his eyes.
"I've been called worse."
I got into the SUV.
Before I closed the door, he leaned down.
"Nine o'clock tomorrow."
"Your father summoned you, not me."
"He photographed you and your child."
"I noticed."
"You deserve answers."
I stared at him.
"And what do you get?"
"An ally."
"Still?"
"Especially now."
I shut the door.
The drive home took twenty-five minutes.
A black sedan stayed three cars behind us the entire way.
I hated that I found it reassuring.
At 1:17 in the morning, I carried Lily up the stairs to our third-floor apartment.
She woke just long enough to wrap her arms around my neck.
"Mommy?"
"Yeah, bug?"
"Was the prince nice to you?"
I looked down at her sleepy face.
"He's not a prince."
"Okay."
Her eyes closed again.
"Was he nice?"
I thought about Giovanni blocking his father's stare from my repaired shoes.
I thought about him refusing to touch me when I was frightened.
I thought about the photograph in the envelope.
"Yes," I whispered.
"He was nice."
I put Lily to bed and checked every lock twice.
Then I opened my laptop.
I searched Giovanni Fierro.
The first page of results made my stomach drop.
Fierro Holdings CEO.
Estimated personal fortune: $2.8 billion.
Hotels in Chicago, New York, Miami, and Milan.
Freight terminals.
Construction finance.
Private equity.
A dozen photographs of Giovanni beside mayors, senators, athletes, and foreign executives.
Then I found older articles.
Fierro family investigated in federal racketeering probe.
No charges filed.
Witness recants testimony.
Fierro subsidiary tied to union corruption allegations.
Case dismissed.
The deeper I searched, the less comfortable I became.
At 2:06 a.m., my phone buzzed.
I expected Giovanni.
It was Tyler.
A new number.
I almost deleted the message without reading it.
Then I saw the attachment.
It was a photograph of Lily sleeping in my apartment.
Taken through the window.
My hands went numb.
May you like
Beneath the photograph were seven words.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LET ME DANCE WITH YOU.
