Chapter 4 - THE INTERROGATION
Rebecca glanced down at the manila envelope with mild annoyance, blowing a pink bubble with her gum.
"Look, officers, whatever ridiculous complaint my brother-in-law filed is completely blown out of proportion," Rebecca drawled, crossing her arms. "Raising two boys—well, a boy and a toddler—without a husband is exhausting. Ethan left us with barely any insurance payout. I have needs. I have stress."
Lead investigator Detective Vance—not to be confused with the doctor—leaned across the table, his face carved from granite.
"Mrs. Brooks, let's talk about what you call 'stress,'" Detective Vance said smoothly. He pulled the photograph of the basement door out of the envelope and laid it flat on the steel table. "Recognize this door?"
Rebecca’s gum-chewing slowed down for a fraction of a second. "It's... it's a storage room door in the basement. So what? Kids get into dangerous things. I had to secure cleaning supplies."
"With heavy industrial deadbolt locks bolted from the outside?" Detective Vance countered, his voice rising sharply. "You locked two children—aged six and three—in a windowless concrete room for days at a time while you went out shopping or visited friends. And let's talk about your oldest nephew—excuse me, your stepson, Leo."
Detective Vance slid the X-ray of Leo’s broken leg across the table.
"Three weeks ago, you struck this child or threw him down the basement stairs, breaking his tibia. Instead of taking him to a hospital, you locked him in the dark while the bone healed incorrectly, forcing him to crawl on a shattered leg just to save his starving sister. That isn't parenting, Mrs. Brooks. That's torture."
For the first time, Rebecca’s polished veneer cracked. Her face flushed a mottled, ugly red.
"He fell!" she shrieked, slamming her hands against the table. "He's a clumsy, ungrateful brat! He's just like his dead father—weak, whiny, and impossible to control! I gave up my entire youth to raise Ethan's bastards, and this is how they repay me? By whining and crying every time I want a moment of peace?!"
In the observation room, listening through the speakers, my blood ran so cold I thought my heart would stop.
She hated them.
She hated my brother, she hated his memory, and she took out that deep-seated malice on two helpless children who had nobody else in the world.
Detective Chen stepped away from the glass, her jaw clenched tight. "That's all I need to hear. The confession is on tape. We are slapping her with felony child endangerment, aggravated assault of a minor, and criminal confinement. She's not seeing daylight for a very long time."
I turned away from the glass, walking out into the hallway to catch my breath. The system was moving, justice was grinding forward, but the lingering terror in Leo’s eyes and the hollow emptiness in Maya’s cheeks haunted every second of my existence.
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My home inspection was scheduled for the next morning. If I wanted to bring them home, I had to ensure everything was ready.
Little did I know, Rebecca’s arrest was only the prologue to a much deeper, darker conspiracy that my brother Ethan had left buried in his private files.
