Chapter 6 - HER VERSION FIRST
The police arrived in nine minutes.
Serena met them in the foyer before Victor could stop her.
She was crying.
Real tears.
I watched her create them as if she were changing clothes.
“She grabbed the baby,” Serena said. “I tried to stop her.”
Victor’s voice cut through the room.
“That is false.”
One officer raised a hand.
“Sir, we need everyone separated.”
I sat in the library with Ethan’s pediatrician checking my ribs while an officer named Martinez took my statement.
I told him everything.
The dragging.
The kick.
The camera blackout.
Graham.
I did not mention the financial records until Victor’s attorney arrived because those records weren’t mine to interpret.
Martinez listened without interrupting.
Then he asked, “Has Ms. Montigue ever accused you of hurting the child before?”
“No.”
“Has Mr. Blackwood?”
“No.”
He looked toward Victor through the glass doors.
“Any documented concerns about your care?”
“Not that I know of.”
That answer bothered me.
Not that I know of.
Why had I said it that way?
Because a month earlier, Victor had asked me why Ethan had a purple mark near his shoulder.
I had told him Ethan slipped while learning to climb onto the sofa.
Victor had nodded.
Nothing else.
But now another memory surfaced.
Serena had been the only adult in the room when it happened.
I had arrived thirty seconds later.
I told Martinez.
He wrote it down.
The pediatrician, Dr. Rosen, examined Ethan next.
A faint red mark ran along the inside of his upper arm.
Fresh.
Consistent with being gripped.
Victor stared at it.
Serena claimed I had caused it.
Dr. Rosen refused to assign blame.
He documented.
Photographed.
Measured.
Exactly what a doctor should do.
No miraculous certainty.
No dramatic pronouncement.
Only evidence.
Then Martinez asked Victor a question.
“Do you have interior footage?”
Victor answered, “The relevant camera was disabled.”
“Any backup?”
“No.”
Daniel moved beside him.
Victor glanced over.
“What?”
Daniel looked uncomfortable.
“There may be.”
Serena’s crying stopped for half a beat.
I noticed.
Daniel explained that the security company had installed a thirty-second diagnostic buffer after a malfunction the previous winter.
It did not store full video.
Only low-resolution system frames used for troubleshooting.
Victor’s face changed.
“Can we access them?”
“I don’t know.”
Serena immediately stood.
“My attorney is coming.”
No one tried to stop her.
The officers had no basis to arrest her then.
Not yet.
Statements conflicted.
The child could not explain.
The video was missing.
The injuries needed review.
Reality did not move as quickly as revenge stories did.
That frightened me more.
As Serena walked toward the sitting room, she passed close enough to whisper:
“You should have taken the money.”
I turned.
“What money?”
She smiled.
Then kept walking.
I had never been offered money.
May you like
Which meant Serena believed someone already had.
📖 Serena’s whispered mistake sent me searching through messages I had ignored, and one forgotten email showed that Graham had tried to buy my silence weeks earlier. 👇
