Chapter 4: The Name on the Paper
The caseworker arrived within the hour.
Her name was Sandra Okafor, and she had been doing this work for sixteen years.
She came in quietly, set her bag down, and sat with Lily while the father spoke to Reyes in the kitchen.
His name was Daniel.
Daniel Marsh.
He was thirty-four years old and worked a ten-hour shift at a logistics warehouse forty minutes from the house.
He left at six in the morning and returned, most days, between four-thirty and five.
"How long have you been married?" Reyes asked.
"Seven years."
"And the girl — Lily — she's yours biologically?"
"Yes.
She's mine." He said it without hesitation.
"Has your wife ever been violent with Lily before today?
Anything you witnessed personally?"
Daniel rubbed his face with both hands.
"She was strict.
I thought she was strict.
She'd raise her voice.
She'd — " He stopped.
"I thought it was discipline.
I didn't know it was — I didn't know about that room."
"The lock on the outside of the door," Reyes said.
"You never noticed it?"
"She told me she had it installed because Lily used to sleepwalk.
She said it was for safety." He laughed once, a short, broken sound.
"I believed her."
Reyes set his notepad down on the table.
"Mr.
Marsh, we found some items in the closet of that back room.
A bottle of pills with no label.
A burner phone.
And a folded piece of paper." He paused.
"The paper had a name and an address on it.
The name is not yours."
Daniel went very still.
"Whose name is it?"
Reyes looked at him steadily.
"Does the name Kevin Pratt mean anything to you?"
The color left Daniel's face.
"He's her brother," Daniel said.
"Her younger brother.
She hasn't spoken to him in three years.
She told me they had a falling out.
That he was troubled.
That she wanted nothing to do with him."
"Did you ever meet him?"
"Once.
At a family event before we were married.
He seemed — off.
She pulled me away from him and said to stay clear." Daniel looked at the table.
"I never asked more than that."
Reyes picked up his notepad again.
"Kevin Pratt was released from a correctional facility fourteen months ago.
He served four years for crjmes involving a minor."
The kitchen went completely silent.
Daniel's hands were flat on the table.
He wasn't moving.
"Are you telling me," he said slowly, "that she had his address?
That she kept it?
In the room where she was locking my daughter?"
"We don't know yet what the connection is," Reyes said.
"But we need to find out."
"Where is she?" Daniel said.
His voice had dropped to something very quiet.
"Where is my wife right now?"
"She's at the station.
She's been processed and she's waiting for a public defender."
"Has she said anything?"
Reyes hesitated.
"She asked one question when they brought her in."
"What question?"
"She asked whether Lily had talked to anyone yet."
Daniel stood up from the table.
The chair scraped back hard.
"She's not worried about herself," he said.
"She's worried about what Lily knows."
He walked to the kitchen doorway and looked into the living room, where Sandra was sitting with Lily on the couch.
Lily was drawing something on a piece of paper Sandra had given her.
She was focused, small tongue pressed to the corner of her mouth the way she always did when she concentrated.
She looked up and saw her father watching her.
She gave him a small wave.
He raised his hand back.
Kept his face steady.
Then he turned back to Reyes.
"What happens now?"
"Child Protective Services will open a formal case.
Lily will need to be evaluated by a medical professional and a child psychologist.
We'll need a formal statement from her — done carefully, with a specialist." Reyes folded his notepad.
"And we'll be looking hard at the connection between your wife and Kevin Pratt."
"And Lily stays with me?"
"That's the goal.
Sandra will be your point of contact on the custody side.
As long as there's no concern about your involvement — and right now, there isn't — Lily stays with you."
Daniel nodded.
He looked back at his daughter one more time.
She had finished her drawing.
She held it up to show him.
It was a picture of the two of them.
Holding hands.
Outside.
In the sun.
No door anywhere in it.
He pressed his hand flat against the doorframe to keep himself upright.
Behind him, Reyes's phone buzzed on the table.
He picked it up, read the message, and looked up.
"They pulled the call history on the burner phone," he said.
"And?"
"Fourteen calls.
All to the same number.
All made while you were at work." Reyes set the phone down.
May you like
"The last one was this morning.
Two hours before you came home."
