Chapter 6: What Derek Decided
Becca arrived forty minutes later.
She walked through the front door, looked at me sitting at Lorraine's kitchen table with a police detective, and said nothing for a full five seconds.
Then she crossed the room and put both arms around me from behind, careful of my belly, and held on.
I let her.
Detective Reyes gave us ten minutes.
She stepped outside, and for those ten minutes it was just Becca and me at the table, and I told her the parts I hadn't been able to say on the phone.
The lock on the door.
The tube.
The way Lorraine would sometimes stand in the corner of the room during the stream and smile at the camera like she was hosting a dinner party.
Becca listened without interrupting.
That was the thing about my sister — she always let you finish.
When I was done, she said, "I called you every week."
"I know."
"You said you were fine."
"I know."
"They were listening?"
"One of them was always in the room," I said.
"Or close enough."
She looked at her hands on the table.
"I should have come anyway.
I had a feeling and I didn't—"
"Don't," I said.
"That's not what tonight is for."
She nodded.
Pressed her lips together.
Nodded again.
Reyes came back in and told us that Derek had asked to make a statement.
We were moved to separate rooms.
I sat in what had been Lorraine's study — bookshelves, a mahogany desk, a framed photo of Derek at maybe twelve years old standing next to Lorraine at some formal event, both of them in matching expressions of composed satisfaction — and waited.
Thirty minutes later, Reyes came back.
"He gave us the adoption facilitator's name," she said.
"And the physician who signed the psychiatric documentation."
"Was it real?
The physician?"
"Licensed.
But the evaluation was fabricated.
He signed off on a report for a patient he never examined." She paused.
"Derek also confirmed that the plan was his mother's.
He says he didn't know about the adoption arrangement until four weeks ago."
"And when he found out?"
"He didn't stop it."
I looked at the photo of twelve-year-old Derek.
He had Lorraine's eyes.
He had always had Lorraine's eyes, and I had thought that was just genetics, and I had been wrong about what it meant.
"What happens to him?" I said.
"That depends on the DA.
He's cooperating fully.
That matters." Reyes sat down across from me.
"What happens to you — that's partly up to you.
Do you have somewhere safe to go tonight?"
"My sister's."
"Good." She leaned forward slightly.
"I want to be honest with you.
The next few weeks are going to be difficult.
There will be hearings.
You'll need to give a formal statement.
The adoption facilitator will likely try to distance himself from the psychiatric documentation.
Lorraine's attorney will argue the stream was a wellness project and you consented."
"I never consented to anything."
"I know.
And we have three weeks of footage that shows exactly that." She paused.
"You did something very smart, getting that recording.
You and Patrice both."
"Is Patrice—"
"She's fine.
She's already given her statement.
She wants you to know—" Reyes almost smiled.
"She said to tell you the baby wipes were her daughter's idea."
I laughed.
It came out wrong — too sharp, too sudden — but it was real.
Becca appeared in the doorway.
"Ready?"
I looked around Lorraine's study one more time.
The bookshelves.
The desk.
May you like
The photo.
I stood up without answering, because the answer was obvious, and I was done explaining myself in this house.
