Chapter 5: What Chloe Had to Say
Nina's apartment was on the fourth floor of a building twelve minutes from our house.
She was standing in the open doorway when I came off the elevator, and she didn't say anything — she just stepped aside and let me in.
Fiona went straight to the couch and curled up under the blanket Nina had already laid out.
Within two minutes she was asleep again, genuinely this time, the deep unconscious sleep of a child who had been awake too long in the cold.
I sat at Nina's kitchen table and spread everything out.
The folder.
The USB.
The photograph.
The envelope from Dr.
Reeves.
Nina read in silence.
She turned each page carefully, set it down, moved to the next.
When she finished she looked up.
"I'm calling Marcus Hale," she said.
"He's the best family law attorney in this city and he owes me a favor."
"It's seven-thirty in the morning."
"He'll answer." She was already dialing.
"Don't touch the USB on any device connected to your accounts.
We'll give it to Marcus."
She stepped into the other room.
I could hear her voice, low and steady.
My phone was on the table in front of me.
Chloe's name was not on the screen.
But Luca's words were still in my head.
*She has something to tell you.*
I picked up the phone and called her.
She answered immediately.
Like she'd been waiting.
"Jessi." Her voice was strange.
Tight.
Not the voice of someone who had just been caught.
The voice of someone who was frightened.
"Luca says you have something to tell me," I said.
"So tell me."
A long pause.
I heard her breathing.
"I didn't know about the medication," she said.
"I need you to know that.
I didn't know what he was putting in your tea.
I found out four weeks ago and I've been—" Her voice broke.
"I've been trying to figure out what to do."
I said nothing.
"I know how that sounds," Chloe said.
"I know.
But the guardianship — I never agreed to that.
When I found out what Whitmore and Associates actually was, I told him I was done.
That's when he started threatening me."
"Threatening you how?"
"He said he had recordings.
Of things I said about you.
Things I said when I was angry, years ago, stupid things that he recorded without telling me.
He said if I went to you or went to anyone, he'd use them to make it look like we'd planned everything together from the beginning.
That I'd lose my nursing license.
That I'd—" She stopped.
"Jessi, I'm so sorry.
I know sorry means nothing right now.
But I have things too.
I kept everything.
Every text where he threatened me.
Every message where he talked about the medication, about the lawyer, about the plan.
I kept all of it."
My hand was tight around the phone.
"Why?" I asked.
"Why did you keep it?"
"Because somewhere in the last four weeks I finally remembered who I was before he got into my head." Her voice was very quiet.
"And because you're my sister."
Nina appeared in the kitchen doorway.
She held up one finger — Marcus Hale was on his way.
I looked at the photograph on the table.
Luca and Chloe outside the family court annex.
Fourteen months ago.
Chloe's face in the photograph was turned slightly away from the camera, slightly away from Luca.
I had assumed it was the ease of two people comfortable together.
Now I looked again.
Her shoulders were angled away from him.
Her chin was down.
It was not the posture of a partner.
It was the posture of someone being led somewhere they weren't sure they wanted to go.
"Send me everything," I said.
"Every text.
Every message.
Every recording he sent you.
Send it to this number right now."
"Okay." A breath.
"Okay.
Jessi — is Fiona all right?"
I looked through the kitchen doorway at my daughter asleep on Nina's couch.
Her small chest rising and falling.
Her fingers curled loosely near her face.
"She will be," I said.
I ended the call.
By the time Marcus Hale arrived forty minutes later with a leather briefcase and reading glasses pushed up on his forehead, my phone had received forty-seven forwarded messages from Chloe's number.
I hadn't read them yet.
I slid the phone across the table to Marcus.
"I need you to read these before I do," I said.
"Tell me what we have."
He sat down, picked up the phone, and started reading.
After four minutes he set it down and looked at me over his glasses.
"Mrs.
May you like
Callahan," he said.
"What you have is a criminal case."
