Chapter 2 - THE EMPTY HOUSE
Detective Collins stared at the photograph for less than a second before calling the officers already approaching my neighborhood.
“Suspect may still be inside.”
“Do not enter alone.”
My chest tightened.
“My house has a rear exit.”
“Where?”
“Through the laundry room.”
Collins relayed the information.
Then she turned toward me.
“Daniel, you stay here.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No.”
“That is my house.”
“And someone who may have deliberately endangered your child is inside it.”
Her voice remained calm.
“That makes it a crime scene.”
I hated her answer.
I also knew she was right.
Twenty-three minutes later, Collins returned to Lily’s room.
Michael was gone.
The back door had been left open.
His bedroom had been emptied of clothes, his laptop, and a black duffel bag.
But he had left something behind.
The second injector.
Collins placed a photograph on the table.
The injector was lying exactly where Michael’s text had shown it.
Only now the protective cap had been removed.
“The officers didn’t touch it,” she said.
“Our evidence team is processing the kitchen.”
“Was it used?”
“We don’t know yet.”
I stared at the image.
“I had two injectors in my jacket this morning.”
Collins nodded.
“One was recovered from Evelyn’s car.”
“And this one was in my house.”
“That appears to be the situation.”
“So how did both disappear from my coat?”
She looked toward Lily.
My daughter had fallen asleep again.
“We need to establish the timeline.”
I closed my eyes.
At seven that morning, Michael had eaten breakfast with us.
He had poured Lily orange juice.
He had teased her about the charity speech.
He had watched me place the emergency pouch inside my jacket.
At nine, he had offered to carry my coat to the car.
I had thought nothing of it.
He was my brother.
That fact was beginning to feel like the stupidest excuse I had ever made.
Collins slid another photograph toward me.
It showed Michael’s bedroom.
A drawer had been pulled open beneath his desk.
Inside were copies of Lily’s medical records.
School schedules.
Custody documents.
And photographs of bruises Lily had gotten from playground accidents over the previous year.
Photos I had never taken.
Someone had been documenting my daughter.
Building a file against me.
“There’s more,” Collins said.
She showed me a shredded bank statement officers had recovered from Michael’s trash.
Most of it was unreadable.
But one number remained visible.
$86,400.
Beside it were three words.
LILY HART TRUST.
I looked up.
“Michael told me he had nothing to do with her finances.”
Collins sat across from me.
“When was the last time you personally reviewed the trust statements?”
I opened my mouth.
Then stopped.
Anna had handled the trust before she died.
Afterward, our family attorney had told me everything was protected.
I had been grieving.
Taking care of a six-year-old who woke up every night asking for her mother.
Trying to survive.
I had trusted other people.
Maybe that had been exactly what they were waiting for.
Detective Collins’ phone rang.
She listened.
Her expression grew harder.
When she disconnected, she looked directly at me.
“The injector in your kitchen wasn’t just removed from your jacket.”
“What do you mean?”
“The pharmacy label was peeled off.”
May you like
She paused.
“And someone replaced it with a label carrying an expiration date from fourteen months ago.”
