The champagne in the glass was cold, but the room was warm. It was the kind of warmth that only money and success could generate—a mix of expensive wool suits, heated marble floors, and the adrenaline of a deal closing.
Ethan Cole stood near the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Hyatt Regency in downtown Seattle, looking out at the gray smudge of the city. The Space Needle was barely visible through the mist, a ghostly spire in the November gloom.
“Ethan, you’ve outdone yourself,” Marcus, the lead investor from the venture capital firm, said, clapping a heavy hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “The cybersecurity protocol you demoed? It’s going to change the banking industry. Seriously. Cheers to you.”
Ethan smiled, clinking his glass against Marcus’s. “It’s been three years of sleepless nights, Marcus. I’m just glad we’re finally here.”
“You should be proud. Take the night off. Celebrate with that lovely wife of yours. Melissa, right?”
At the mention of his wife’s name, Ethan’s smile faltered just a fraction of an inch. It was a micro-expression, gone before anyone could notice. “Right. Melissa. She’s… actually at home with Lily tonight. Keeping the fort down.”
“Lily’s what? Eight now?”
“Eight going on eighteen,” Ethan laughed, though the sound felt hollow in his own chest. He checked his watch. 6:10 p.m.
He had promised Lily he would be home by dinner to read her the new chapter book she’d bought at the school fair. But then the negotiations had dragged on, the lawyers had argued over paragraph four, subsection C, and here he was, an hour away from home in rush hour traffic, sipping champagne he didn’t want.
“Excuse me for a moment, gentlemen,” Ethan said, setting the glass down on a high-top table. “I just need to check in at home.”
He stepped out of the ballroom and into the long, carpeted corridor. The noise of the party faded instantly, replaced by the low hum of the hotel’s HVAC system. He pulled his phone from his suit pocket.
The screen lit up his face.
5 Missed Calls. 5 New Voicemails.
All from Lily’s iPad.
Ethan frowned. Lily knew the rules. She wasn’t supposed to call unless it was an emergency, and usually, she would text a string of emojis—unicorns, hearts, sad faces if he was late. Five calls was aggressive.
He tapped the first voicemail.
It was short. Just breathing. Heavy, wet breathing, and a small voice saying, “Daddy? Are you there?” Click.
Ethan loosened his tie. A prickle of unease started at the base of his neck. He tapped the second one.
“Dad… please… come home fast. I’m so cold… and Melissa won’t let me change my clothes…”
The voice was thin. It sounded like it was coming from inside a tunnel. It was trembling, breaking apart between quiet, muffled sobs.
Ethan froze. He stopped walking. A waiter passed him with a tray of hors d’oeuvres, but Ethan didn’t see him. He stared at the timestamps. 5:45 p.m. 5:48 p.m. 5:55 p.m.
He pressed play on the third message.
“She let me inside… but she said I have to stay like this. I’m all wet, Daddy. I fell in the puddle by the driveway and she got mad. She made me sit on the couch… and then she went to bed… She said if I get up she’ll lock my iPad away forever…”
The prickle on his neck turned into a cold spike of adrenaline.
It was forty-four degrees outside. It had been raining sideways since noon.
Ethan hit the fourth message. His hand was shaking now.
“Dad… I’ve been sitting here a long time… my teeth hurt… my hands won’t stop shaking… she said if I move, it’ll be worse… please come home.”
The fifth message. The most recent one. 6:08 p.m.
“Dad… I feel sleepy… I’m scared to fall asleep… my teacher said when you get too cold… sometimes people don’t wake up… please…”
Ethan didn’t think. He didn’t go back into the ballroom to get his coat. He didn’t say goodbye to Marcus or the investors who had just handed him a check for ten million dollars.
He turned and sprinted toward the elevators.
Chapter 2: The Red Line
The valet stand was busy. A line of people in evening wear waited for their cars. Ethan bypassed the line, shoving a hundred-dollar bill into the hand of the young attendant at the booth.
“Black Porsche Panamera. Now. I don’t care who is in front of me. Get it now.”
The kid looked at Ethan’s face—pale, eyes wide, sweat beading on his forehead despite the chill—and nodded. He didn’t argue. He ran.
Two minutes later, Ethan was behind the wheel. He peeled out of the hotel driveway, cutting off a taxi, the horn blaring behind him like a distant war cry.
He hit the Bluetooth button on the dashboard.
“Call Melissa.”
Ring… Ring… Ring…
“Hi, you’ve reached Melissa. I’m probably doing yoga or drinking a green smoothie! Leave a message!” Her voice was bubbly, artificial, perfect. It made Ethan want to punch the dashboard.
“Melissa, pick up the phone!” he screamed at the empty car.
He hung up and dialed again. And again.
The traffic on I-5 was a nightmare. A sea of red taillights stretched out toward the suburbs. Ethan slammed his hand on the steering wheel. He swerved into the HOV lane, ignoring the restrictions. He didn’t care about a ticket. He didn’t care about anything except the image burning in his mind: Lily, sitting on their beige linen sofa, shivering.
Why?
Why would Melissa do this?
He thought back to the last few months. Melissa was his second wife. They had been married for two years. She was beautiful, organized, and projected the image of the perfect suburban stepmother. She packed organic lunches. She braided Lily’s hair for ballet recitals.
But there had been signs. Small ones.
The time Lily “lost” her favorite teddy bear, only for Ethan to find it in the donation bin in the garage a week later. The way Melissa would sigh, a long, suffering sound, whenever Lily asked for a glass of water after bedtime. The way Lily stopped hugging Melissa when Ethan wasn’t looking.
He had ignored them. He was building a company. He was providing for them. He told himself he was doing this for them.
Stupid, he hissed at himself. Stupid, selfish man.
The rain lashed against the windshield, the wipers struggling to keep up with the deluge. It was a classic Seattle storm—cold, relentless, soaking everything it touched.
He checked the temperature gauge on the dashboard. External temperature: 43°F.
Hypothermia.
He remembered reading about it. It didn’t take sub-zero temperatures. If a child was wet, immobile, and in shock, forty-three degrees was enough to kill.
“Dad… I feel sleepy…”
Her voice echoed in the cab of the car.
Ethan pressed the accelerator. The speedometer climbed. 80. 90. He wove through traffic, flashing his high beams. He passed a semi-truck on the shoulder, gravel spraying against the undercarriage of his luxury car.
He dialed the house landline. No answer.
He dialed Lily’s iPad again.
It rang and rang. Then, it connected.
“Lily! Lily, are you there?” Ethan shouted, gripping the phone so hard his knuckles turned white.
Silence.
Then, a small, chattering sound. Like teeth clicking together uncontrollably.
“D-d-d-daddy?”
“I’m coming, baby. I’m coming. I’m ten minutes away. Listen to me. You need to get up. Can you get up?”
“I… I c-c-can’t. She s-s-said…”
“I don’t care what she said!” Ethan roared, shocking himself. “Lily, listen to my voice. Ignore Melissa. I am telling you to get up. Go to the bathroom. Get a towel. Can you do that?”
“M-m-my legs… they feel f-f-funny. Like they aren’t m-m-mine.”
Terror, cold and absolute, washed over him.
“Okay, baby. Okay. Just stay awake. Talk to me. Tell me about the book you’re reading. What’s the pony’s name?”
“S-s-star… dust,” she whispered. Her voice was fading. “He… he flies…”
“Keep talking, Lily! Tell me about Stardust! What color is he?”
“Sil… ver…”
“Lily?”
“…”
“Lily!”
The line didn’t go dead. It just went silent. He could hear the faint sound of rain hitting the window in the background on her end.
She had dropped the iPad.
Ethan let out a guttural sound, half-sob, half-scream. He exited the highway, taking the turn so fast the back tires skidded on the wet asphalt. He corrected the spin with sheer instinct and floored it up the winding hill toward the affluent neighborhood of Mercer Island.
Chapter 3: The House on the Hill
Their house was a modern masterpiece of glass and steel, perched on a cliff overlooking the lake. Usually, when he pulled into the driveway, he felt a sense of pride. Tonight, it looked like a fortress.
The lights were off downstairs. The only light came from the master bedroom on the second floor.
Melissa was awake? Or she had left the light on?
Ethan didn’t park. He slammed the car into ‘Park’ right in the middle of the driveway, leaving the engine running, the door open, the headlights cutting through the rain.
He ran to the front door. Locked.
He fumbled for his keys, his hands shaking so bad he dropped them into a puddle.
“Damn it!”
He fell to his knees, groping in the freezing water. He found the fob, jammed it into the lock, and threw the door open.
The house was silent. It was also freezing.
“Lily!” he screamed.
He ran into the living room.
The house was immaculate. White carpets. Glass tables. Art on the walls. It looked like a museum, not a home.
There, on the oversized beige sectional, was a small, dark lump.
Ethan rushed over.
It was Lily.
She was curled into a tight ball, her knees pulled to her chest. She was wearing her school clothes—a pink cotton dress and leggings—but they were dark with water. A puddle had formed on the expensive leather beneath her.
Her hair was plastered to her skull. Her lips were a terrifying shade of blue.
“Lily. Oh god, Lily.”
Ethan scooped her up. She felt like a block of ice. She was stiff.
Her eyes were half-open, glazed over, looking at nothing.
“Baby, look at me. Look at Daddy.”
She didn’t blink. She barely breathed. Her chest moved with shallow, jerky hitches.
Ethan didn’t think about hospitals yet. He knew he had to get her warm now. He ripped off his suit jacket and wrapped it around her, but it wasn’t enough.
He carried her, running toward the master bedroom upstairs. He needed the shower. He needed warm water.
As he reached the top of the stairs, the door to the master bedroom opened.
Melissa stood there.
She was wearing a silk robe and a matching sleep mask pushed up onto her forehead. She looked groggy, annoyed. She held a glass of wine in one hand.
“Ethan?” she blinked, squinting against the hallway light. “What are you doing home? I thought you were with the investors. You’re dripping water on the hardwood…”
Ethan stopped. He held his freezing, semi-conscious daughter in his arms, staring at his wife.
“What did you do?” Ethan’s voice was low, terrifyingly quiet.
Melissa looked down at Lily, then rolled her eyes. A casual, dismissive roll.
“Oh, is she still acting out? I told her, Ethan. She was jumping in puddles like a toddler when she got off the bus. Ruined her shoes. I told her, ‘If you want to act like a wild animal and get wet, you can sit in your mess until you learn to appreciate dry clothes.’”
Melissa took a sip of wine. “It’s called parenting, Ethan. Consequences. She needs to learn.”
Ethan felt a rage so pure, so white-hot, that for a second, his vision actually went white.
He didn’t scream. He didn’t argue.
He walked past her, shouldering her out of the way so hard she stumbled and spilled red wine down the front of her white silk robe.
“Ethan! You ruined my—”
“Get out of my way,” he snarled.
He kicked the bathroom door open. He set Lily down on the plush bathmat. With trembling hands, he turned the shower on. Not hot—he knew that could cause shock. Warm. Lukewarm.
He knelt down and began to peel the soaked, freezing clothes off his daughter. Her skin was marble-white, mottled with red.
“It’s okay, Lily. It’s okay.”
He stepped into the shower with her, still wearing his dress shirt and slacks. He sat on the floor of the shower, pulling her onto his lap, letting the warm water cascade over both of them.
He rocked her.
“Daddy’s got you. Daddy’s got you.”
Behind him, in the doorway of the bathroom, Melissa appeared. She looked less annoyed now and more confused. Maybe even a little scared by the intensity of Ethan’s silence.
“Ethan, you’re overreacting. She’s fine. She’s just being dramatic to get your attention. It worked, clearly.”
Ethan didn’t turn around. He just held Lily tighter. He could feel her heart. It was beating, but it was slow. Too slow.
“Call 911,” Ethan said.
“What? No. I’m not calling an ambulance for a tantrum. The neighbors will see. It’s embarrassing.”
Ethan turned his head. Water dripped from his hair. His eyes were dark voids.
“Call 911, Melissa. Or I swear to God, when I walk out of this bathroom, I will destroy you. I will take everything. I will bury you under so many lawsuits you won’t be able to breathe.”
Melissa froze. She had seen Ethan negotiate. She had seen him angry at contractors. But she had never seen him look like a predator.
She backed away, reaching for her phone.
Chapter 4: The Thaw
The paramedics arrived in six minutes.
They were professional, quick, and didn’t ask questions about why the father was soaking wet in a tuxedo shirt. They took Lily’s temperature.
94 degrees.
Moderate hypothermia.
“She needs to go in,” the paramedic said, wrapping Lily in thermal blankets. “Her heart rate is irregular. We need to monitor her.”
Ethan nodded. He climbed into the back of the ambulance.
Melissa stood on the porch, under the awning, dry and watching. She had put a coat on.
“I’ll drive the car,” she called out, trying to sound like a concerned mother for the benefit of the neighbors who were peering out their windows.
Ethan looked at the paramedic. “Don’t let her near the hospital.”
The paramedic, a burly man who had seen enough domestic situations to read the room instantly, nodded. “Family only in the ambulance, sir. We’re moving.”
The doors slammed shut.
As the siren wailed, cutting through the rainy night, Lily’s eyes fluttered open. The warmth was returning. The blankets were working.
She looked up at Ethan, her teeth still chattering slightly.
“D-d-dad?”
“I’m here, Lil. I’m right here.”
“Did… did you close the deal?”
Ethan choked back a sob. She was freezing, possibly traumatized, and she was worried about his job. Because that’s all he had talked about for months.
He kissed her forehead.
“I closed the only deal that matters, baby.”
Chapter 5: Sterile Lights and Bitter Coffee
The waiting room of Seattle Children’s Hospital smelled like floor wax and anxiety. It was a smell Ethan Cole would never forget for the rest of his life.
He sat in a hard plastic chair, staring at the scuffed linoleum tiles. He was still wearing his tuxedo pants and dress shirt, though the shirt was dried and wrinkled now, stained with water and sweat. He looked like a man who had been through a war, which, in a way, he had.
It had been three hours since they arrived.
The nurses had whisked Lily away immediately. IV fluids. Warm blankets. Monitoring. The flurry of activity had been terrifyingly efficient.
Now, it was just the quiet hum of the vending machine in the corner and the sound of Ethan’s own heart hammering against his ribs.
“Mr. Cole?”
Ethan shot up. A doctor in blue scrubs, looking exhausted but kind, stood in the doorway. Dr. Aris, her badge read.
“How is she?” Ethan asked, his voice cracking.
“She’s stable,” Dr. Aris said, gesturing for him to sit back down. She took the seat opposite him. “We’ve got her body temperature back up to 98 degrees. She’s resting. She’s going to be okay physically, Ethan. We caught it just in time.”
Ethan let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding since he left the hotel. He put his head in his hands. “Thank God.”
“ However,” Dr. Aris continued, her tone shifting. It became sharper, more clinical. “We need to talk about how this happened.”
Ethan looked up.
“She was in Stage 2 hypothermia,” the doctor said quietly. “In a house with central heating. In an urban area. Mr. Cole, when a child comes in with environmental exposure like that, inside their own home, we have questions. Mandatory reporting protocols are in effect.”
Ethan nodded slowly. He knew this was coming. In the corporate world, he was used to liability. But this wasn’t a lawsuit about software. This was his daughter.
“I know,” Ethan said. “I was at work. My wife… my stepdaughter’s stepmother… was watching her.”
“Lily told the nurses she wasn’t allowed to change her clothes,” Dr. Aris said, her eyes searching Ethan’s face. “She said she was ‘being punished’ for getting the rug wet. Is that accurate?”
Ethan’s jaw tightened until his teeth ached. “That is what my wife said to me when I arrived.”
Dr. Aris made a note on her clipboard. “Okay. A social worker from Child Protective Services is on their way. You’ll need to speak with them before you can take Lily home. And frankly, Mr. Cole, I strongly advise that Lily does not return to that environment tonight.”
“She won’t,” Ethan said, his voice cold steel. “She’s never going back to that woman. Ever.”
Chapter 6: The Interview
The social worker was a woman named Sarah. She was soft-spoken but had eyes that missed nothing. She sat with Ethan in a small, private consultation room at 10:30 p.m.
“I need to understand the family dynamic, Mr. Cole. You travel often?”
“I run a cybersecurity firm,” Ethan explained. “We’re in a growth phase. I’ve been… absent. A lot. I thought I was providing for them. I thought earning money was the same thing as being a good father.”
He laughed bitterly. “I was wrong.”
“And Melissa? Your wife?”
“She’s… particular,” Ethan chose his words carefully. “She likes things perfect. Clean house. Perfect image. She gets frustrated when Lily acts like a kid. But I never thought she would physically harm her.”
“Neglect is physical harm, Mr. Cole,” Sarah said gently. “Forcing a wet child to sit in a cold room for hours is not discipline. It’s torture.”
The word hung in the air. Torture.
Ethan felt sick. He grabbed his phone. “I have the voicemails. Lily called me. Melissa didn’t even know she had her iPad.”
He played the audio for the social worker.
“Dad… I’m so cold… she won’t let me change…”
Sarah listened, her expression unmoving, professional. But Ethan saw her hand tighten around her pen. When the fifth message played—the one where Lily sounded like she was fading away—Sarah stopped the recording.
“Okay,” she said. “That’s enough. That is evidence of child endangerment. We will be opening a case against Melissa Cole. Do you have a safe place to stay tonight? Somewhere she isn’t?”
“I’ll take her to a hotel,” Ethan said. “Or I have a condo downtown near the office. I haven’t used it in years, but it’s furnished.”
“Take her to the condo,” Sarah advised. “And Mr. Cole? Don’t let Melissa near her. If she shows up, call the police. Immediately.”
Chapter 7: The Gaslight
Ethan walked back to Lily’s room. She was asleep, looking tiny in the hospital bed, hooked up to a saline drip. Her color was better. The blue tinge was gone from her lips, replaced by a soft pink.
He sat in the chair beside her bed and turned on his phone.
He had ignored it for hours. Now, it flooded with notifications.
12 Missed Calls from Melissa. 25 Text Messages.
He opened the text thread.
Melissa (7:15 PM): You are being ridiculous. Where did you take her? Melissa (7:30 PM): I’m calling the police if you don’t answer. You can’t just kidnap her. Melissa (8:00 PM): Ethan, this is embarrassing. The neighbors are talking about the ambulance. Melissa (8:45 PM): I was just trying to teach her responsibility! She ruined the Persian rug! Melissa (9:30 PM): Fine. Ignore me. But don’t expect me to be there when you get back. I’m going to my sister’s. Melissa (10:15 PM): Ethan, please. I’m sorry if I was too harsh. I had a migraine. You know how I get.
The shift in tone—from anger to victimhood to manipulation—was textbook. Ethan stared at the screen, feeling a detachment he hadn’t felt before. He didn’t love this woman. He realized, with sudden clarity, that he hadn’t loved her for a long time. He had loved the idea of a family. He had loved having someone to run the house while he built his empire.
He had sacrificed his daughter’s safety for his own convenience.
He typed one reply.
Ethan: Do not go to your sister’s. Stay at the house. The police will need to know where to find you.
He hit send. Then he blocked her number.
Chapter 8: The Eye in the Sky
Lily shifted in her sleep. “Daddy?”
“I’m here, bud.”
“Can we go home?”
“Not yet. We’re going to go to the city apartment for a while. Is that cool? It has the big TV.”
“Okay,” she murmured, drifting back off.
Ethan needed to know. He needed to see it.
He opened his laptop, connecting to the hospital Wi-Fi. He pulled up the interface for his home security system, SecureHome. It was his own company’s software. He had cameras everywhere—the driveway, the front door, the living room, the backyard.
He had installed them for security against burglars. He never thought he’d use them to investigate his wife.
He scrolled back on the timeline to 3:30 p.m.
Video Feed: Front Door Exterior.
The school bus pulled up. Lily hopped off, wearing her yellow raincoat and pink boots. She was happy. She splashed in a puddle near the gate. She laughed.
She walked to the front door.
Ethan watched as Lily tried the handle. Locked.
She rang the doorbell.
She waited.
She rang it again.
Ethan checked the timestamp. 3:45 p.m. It was pouring rain.
The door didn’t open.
Lily stood there for ten minutes. She knocked. She put her face to the glass.
Ethan switched the camera view to Living Room Interior.
Melissa was on the couch. She was scrolling on her phone. She looked up when the doorbell rang. She looked at the door. And then… she looked back at her phone.
She ignored it.
Ethan felt bile rise in his throat. She had left an eight-year-old outside in a storm intentionally.
Back to Front Door Exterior.
3:55 p.m. Lily was shivering now. She sat down on the porch step, huddling into her knees.
4:10 p.m. The door finally opened. Melissa stood there. No audio on the exterior camera, but her body language was aggressive. She pointed at Lily’s muddy boots. She pointed at the puddle.
Lily walked inside, head down.
Ethan switched to Living Room Interior. Audio enabled.
“Look at you!” Melissa’s voice came through the laptop speakers, tinny but clear. “You’re filthy. You’re dripping water everywhere. I just had this cleaned.”
“I’m sorry, Melissa. I was locked out,” Lily said softly.
“You weren’t locked out, you were playing in the mud like a pig. Sit there.” Melissa pointed to the far end of the sofa, where she had laid down a plastic drop cloth—the kind painters use.
“Can I change first? I’m cold.”
“No. If you want to be wet, stay wet. Sit on the plastic so you don’t ruin the fabric. Do not move until I say so. I’m going to take a nap. If you wake me up, no iPad for a month.”
Ethan watched as his wife walked up the stairs.
He watched his daughter sit on the plastic sheet.
He watched her shiver.
He watched her try to wrap her arms around herself.
He watched her reach into her backpack, sneakily, to get her iPad.
He watched her dial his number.
Ethan slammed the laptop shut. He couldn’t watch anymore. He was shaking. Not from cold, but from a rage so profound it felt like burning lava in his veins.
This wasn’t just bad parenting. This was calculated cruelty.
He picked up his phone and dialed a number he had in his contacts under “Legal.”
“Simon? It’s Ethan Cole. I know it’s late.”
The voice on the other end was groggy. “Ethan? Is everything okay? Congrats on the deal, by the way.”
“I need you to file for divorce,” Ethan said. “First thing in the morning. And I need a restraining order. And Simon? I want full custody. Sole legal and physical. She gets nothing. No alimony. No settlement. I want to destroy her.”
“Whoa, Ethan, slow down. What happened?”
“I have video evidence of child abuse, Simon. I have medical reports. I have CPS involved. She almost killed Lily.”
There was a silence on the line. Then, the lawyer’s voice came back, sharp and awake.
“Send me the video files. I’ll have the papers drafted by 6:00 a.m. We’ll freeze the joint accounts immediately.”
“Do it,” Ethan said.
Chapter 9: The Morning After
Ethan didn’t sleep. He watched Lily breathe.
At 7:00 a.m., the discharge papers were signed. Ethan carried Lily out to the car. She was wearing hospital scrubs because her clothes were in an evidence bag.
They didn’t go home. They went to the condo in downtown Seattle. It was a bachelor pad—glass walls, black leather, view of the Sound. It wasn’t a place for a little girl, but it was safe.
Ethan ordered every comfort food he could think of via DoorDash. Pancakes, waffles, bacon, hot chocolate.
They sat on the floor of the living room, eating pancakes out of Styrofoam containers.
“Dad?” Lily asked, syrup on her chin.
“Yeah, peanut?”
“Are you going to work today?”
Ethan looked at his phone. He had missed three meetings already. The investors from last night were probably confused. His stock was probably fluctuating.
He looked at Lily. She looked fragile, but she was smiling for the first time in twenty-four hours.
“No,” Ethan said. “I’m not going to work today. Or tomorrow. I’m taking a leave of absence.”
“Really?”
“Really. We’re going to hang out. We’re going to watch movies. And we’re going to find you a new school. And… we’re going to find a new house. Just us.”
Lily stopped chewing. “Melissa isn’t coming?”
“No,” Ethan said firmly. “Melissa is never coming back.”
Lily put her fork down. She crawled over into Ethan’s lap and buried her face in his neck. She started to cry, but they were happy tears. Tears of relief.
“Thank you, Daddy.”
Ethan held her. He knew the fight wasn’t over. The lawyers, the police, the media—it was all about to explode. But for this moment, in a quiet apartment high above the city, he was exactly where he was supposed to be.
Chapter 10: The Knock at the Door
Two days later.
Ethan and Lily were settling into a routine at the condo. He had bought her new clothes, new toys. He was learning how to braid hair (poorly) via YouTube tutorials.
His phone had been blowing up, but he filtered everything through Simon, his lawyer.
Melissa had been served the divorce papers. According to Simon, she had screamed at the process server and thrown a vase.
Ethan was making a grilled cheese sandwich when the buzzer for the building rang.
“Mr. Cole? Concierge here. There are two detectives from the Seattle Police Department here to see you.”
Ethan turned off the stove. “Send them up.”
He wiped his hands on a towel. He walked into the living room where Lily was watching cartoons.
“Lily, honey, put your headphones on, okay? Dad needs to talk to some people.”
She nodded, slipping on her big noise-canceling headphones.
A minute later, there was a knock at the door.
Ethan opened it. Two officers stood there. One male, one female. Both looked serious.
“Ethan Cole?”
“Yes.”
“We’re here regarding the report filed by Child Protective Services and the evidence submitted by your attorney. We have a warrant for the arrest of Melissa Cole.”
Ethan nodded. “Okay.”
“We also need to ask you some questions, sir,” the female officer said. “About your knowledge of previous incidents.”
“I didn’t know,” Ethan said, looking them in the eye. “I swear to God, I didn’t know. But I should have.”
“We’re going to need you to come down to the station to give a formal statement later. For now, we just wanted to inform you that we are picking her up. Charges are Child Endangerment in the First Degree and Negligent Injury.”
“Good,” Ethan said.
“One more thing,” the officer said, hesitating slightly. “She’s claiming… well, she’s claiming you told her to do it. That you were the strict one. That she was just following your rules.”
Ethan laughed. It was a dark, dry sound.
“I have the video, Officer. I have the audio of me screaming at her to call 911 while she drank wine. Good luck with that defense.”
The officer nodded. “We figured. Just wanted you to be prepared. It’s going to get messy.”
Ethan looked back at Lily, who was giggling at the TV, safe and warm.
“Let it get messy,” Ethan said. “I don’t care about the mess anymore. I just care about her.”
[STORY TO BE CONTINUED]
