Chapter 6: What Patrice Found
Patrice Chen's office was on the fourteenth floor of a building downtown, with a view of the city that felt too calm for the conversation happening inside it.
She was fifty-two, small, and moved through a room like someone who had stopped wasting motion years ago.
She shook Ethan's hand, then mine, then set a yellow legal pad on the desk and said, "Start from the beginning.
Don't edit."
We didn't edit.
She wrote steadily for forty minutes.
When we finished, she set down her pen and looked at the prescription bottle sealed inside the clear plastic bag I'd placed on her desk.
"You didn't open it further after the motel?"
"No."
"Good." She turned it slowly with one finger without touching the label.
"Dispensed eleven days ago.
Sixty tablets.
How many were left?"
"I counted before I bagged it.
Forty-one."
Patrice wrote that down.
"So nineteen tablets over eleven days.
That's nearly double the standard daily dose for this medication." She looked up.
"Lena was given this voluntarily?"
"She said Margaret told her it was for anxiety.
That she looked tired."
"And she took two the first night and slept for fourteen hours."
"Yes."
Patrice was quiet for a moment.
"This isn't a civil matter anymore.
You understand that."
Ethan's hands were on his knees again.
Same position as the night before.
"I understand."
"I'm going to refer this to someone I trust at the DA's office.
What Margaret did — if Lena's toxicology confirms the concentration — that's not a misunderstanding.
That's deliberate." She paused.
"The recording of the phone threat is also significant.
Texas is a one-party consent state.
You were on the call.
It's admissible."
"She didn't know it was recording," I said.
"They never do." Patrice folded her hands.
"Now.
Ethan.
I need to ask you something directly."
"Go ahead."
"Is there any possibility your mother didn't know about Noah?
Any chance Lena fabricated any part of this?"
Ethan didn't hesitate.
"The hospital bracelet has my name and my surgery date.
I had that surgery.
My mother drove me to that hospital.
She was there the entire week." He paused.
"And she said it herself, in front of two hundred people.
*Lena wasn't supposed to come back.*"
Patrice wrote that down too.
"Witnesses?"
"Two hundred of them."
She almost smiled.
"All right." She capped her pen.
"Here's what happens next.
I file for an emergency custody evaluation — Ethan's paternity needs to be formally established, though with the bracelet and the photograph and Lena's testimony, I don't anticipate resistance.
Simultaneously, I refer the medication matter to the DA.
You do not contact Margaret.
You do not respond to Richard Hale.
You let me handle both."
"She'll fight it," Ethan said.
"Of course she will." Patrice picked up the prescription bottle and set it carefully to the side of her desk.
"Let her."
We were in the elevator going down when Ethan's phone buzzed.
A text from a number he didn't recognize.
*You should know Margaret Cole has been telling people at the Bellmont that Lena Vasquez is a con artist who targeted your family.
It's already spreading.
I'm a guest who was at the wedding.
I think what happened to that little boy was wrong.
I have video of everything from the ceremony.
If you need it, I'm willing to share.*
Ethan read it twice.
He handed me the phone.
May you like
I read it once.
"Call them back," I said.
