Chapter 4 - The House of Secrets
By sunrise, the media trucks had found our street.
News vans from local Chicago affiliates were parked haphazardly along the cul-de-sac, their satellite dishes pointed toward our house like mechanical vultures. Word of a prominent local real estate developer’s daughter being rescued from a residential chest freezer by police had leaked through police scanner feeds within twenty minutes of the 911 call.
I sat in the swivel chair of the hospital’s family consultation room, rubbing my face with both hands. I hadn't slept. My eyes burned, and my muscles ached with a deep, bone-weary exhaustion.
The door opened softly, and Dr. Alpert walked in, carrying a clipboard.
"How is she?" I asked before he could even take a seat.
"Physically, she’s cleared for discharge," Dr. Alpert said, offering a reassuring smile. "Her temperature is normal, her lungs are clear, and her circulation has fully returned to her extremities. But psychologically, Julian, we have some hurdles. She’s refusing to speak about what happened last night. She won't look at the door when someone knocks, and she asked me three separate times if her mother was going to take her back to the 'cold box.'"
My chest tightened as if someone were slowly twisting a knife between my ribs. "Can she come home with me?"
"Legally, since you share joint custody, yes," Dr. Alpert said carefully. "However, Child Protective Services has placed a temporary protective order restricting Evelyn Carter from coming within five hundred yards of Lily. And frankly, Julian... given the tension between you and Taylor, you need to consider where Lily will feel safe."
"She’s staying with me," I said firmly. "In my downtown penthouse. Evelyn will never set foot near her again, and Taylor... Taylor is going to have to make a choice."
When I arrived back at the house to pack Lily’s clothes and school books, the front door was unlocked. Inside, the foyer was silent. The moose magnet holding Lily’s calendar to the refrigerator was still there, but the atmosphere of the home felt permanently poisoned.
I found Taylor sitting at the kitchen island, staring blankly at a cold cup of coffee. Her purse was on the counter, and her car keys sat beside it.
"The police released her," Taylor said without looking up as I walked in.
I stopped dead in my tracks. "What?"
"Her lawyer filed an emergency writ," Taylor said, her voice hollow, devoid of any emotion. "Without physical forensic evidence linking her to the latch—no fingerprints that couldn't be explained away as normal household contact—the DA couldn't hold her overnight without a formal indictment. She’s staying at a hotel downtown until things settle down."
"She tried to murder our daughter, Taylor!" I shouted, slamming my hand down on the marble countertop.
Taylor finally looked up, her eyes dark, rimmed with purple shadows. "She’s my mother, Julian! She helped raise me! She’s an old woman!"
"She is a monster," I corrected her, leaning across the counter. "And the fact that you are sitting here making excuses for her tells me everything I need to know about why our marriage failed. You were never my wife, Taylor. You were just an extension of your mother's household."
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Taylor flinched as if I had struck her across the face. She stood up slowly, her hands trembling. "I’m filing emergency custody papers this morning, Julian. You are not taking Lily away from me."
"Try it," I whispered, turning my back on her. "See what a family court judge does when I play the ninety-one-one audio of our daughter whispering that her grandmother put her in a freezer."
