Chapter 3 - The Cold Patriarch
I stepped past Martinez, the fury in my chest threatening to consume every rational thought in my head. I wanted to drag her out of that chair. I wanted her to feel a fraction of the terror my daughter had experienced in the pitch-black cold of that freezer.
"Where is she, Evelyn?" I demanded, stopping three feet away from her.
Evelyn adjusted her glasses, looking up at me with that patronizing, untouchable expression she had worn throughout my entire seven-year marriage to her daughter.
"Good evening to you too, Julian. Such a volatile temperament. It’s no wonder Taylor finally had the sense to divorce you."
"Mom, stop it!" Taylor cried out, rushing into the room. She dropped to her knees beside Evelyn’s chair, grabbing her mother's hands. "Mom, what did you do? The police are downstairs. Lily is in the hospital. You locked her in the freezer?"
Evelyn blinked, her expression shifting into one of profound disappointment and confusion. "Taylor, honey, what on earth are you talking about? Who locked who in what?"
"Don't play games with me," I snarled, leaning down until I was towering over her. "The police searched the garage. They found the latch. Lily told us everything. She told us you said she was being disrespectful."
Evelyn slowly pulled her hands out of Taylor’s grip, folding them neatly in her lap. She looked at Officer Martinez, then back at me, her face hardening into an expression of icy self-righteousness.
"That child has an extraordinarily active imagination," Evelyn said calmly, her voice chillingly steady. "She broke my porcelain teacup this afternoon after I specifically told her not to run in the sunroom. When I disciplined her—verbally, as any responsible guardian would—she threw a massive temper tantrum. She stomped out to the garage and slammed the door. I assumed she went outside to sulk in the yard."
"She was locked inside a chest freezer, Evelyn," Martinez said, his voice clipped and professional as he stepped into the room with his notebook open. "The lid was secured from the outside with a manual sliding latch. A latch that requires adult height and leverage to engage."
Evelyn didn't flinch. She turned her cold blue eyes onto the police officer. "Officer, I am seventy-two years old. I have arthritis in both hands. Do you honestly believe I have the physical strength to drag an eight-year-old child across a concrete garage floor and hoist her into a deep commercial freezer?"
"Yes," I answered instantly. "When you're fueled by spite and cruelty, you have plenty of strength."
"Julian, enough!" Taylor screamed, standing up and turning on me with venom in her eyes. "You're taking the word of an eight-year-old who was panicked and traumatized over my mother? You're ready to throw my seventy-two-year-old mother in prison based on a child's scared misunderstanding?"
I stared at Taylor, my blood turning to ice. "You're defending her."
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"I'm defending the truth!" Taylor lied, though her voice wavered on the final word.
Officer Martinez closed his notebook with a sharp snap. "Mrs. Carter, you're going to have to come down to the station for formal questioning. Mr. Harrison, I suggest you return to the hospital to be with your daughter. We will secure the house as a crime scene."
