Chapter 2 - THE GIRL IN THE YELLOW RAINCOAT
Maya Brooks arrived at the estate with her grandfather just before noon.
Her mother, Lila, followed a few steps behind them. She wore her
greenhouse uniform and looked as though she had spent the entire morning
expecting to be dismissed.
Ethan asked them to sit in the library.
“First,” he said to Maya, “thank you for telling me what you saw.”
Maya glanced at her grandfather. “I wasn’t supposed to talk about
grown-up things.”
“Sometimes grown-up things are exactly what grown-ups need help
understanding.”
She considered that.
“Are you going to get better?”
Ethan looked at his legs beneath the blanket. “I don’t know yet.”
“Grandpa says you shouldn’t promise things you can’t know.”
“Your grandfather sounds wise.”
“He is. But he burns toast.”
Samuel Brooks gave a quiet laugh. It was the first relaxed sound in the
room.
Naomi asked Samuel to explain what he had seen when Maya brought him the
tablet. He was a retired hospital pharmacist, and he had recognized that
the markings might belong to a prescription medication, but he had not
attempted to identify it from appearance alone.
“I told Maya not to touch it again,” he said. “I also told her that the
pill needed to be checked by a proper laboratory. I called the number
listed on Mr. Hale’s public business website. I left messages twice.”
Ethan’s face tightened.
“Those messages never reached me.”
Naomi wrote that down.
Lila folded her hands in her lap.
“I tried to speak to Ms. Lane last week. I noticed that the medicine
bottles in the kitchen had different labels from the ones I remembered.
I asked whether Mr. Hale’s care team had changed his prescriptions.”
“What did she say?” Ethan asked.
“She told me medical matters were none of the staff’s business. The next
morning, my greenhouse hours were reduced. Then I was told not to enter
the main house.”
“Did she give you a reason?”
“She said I had been asking inappropriate questions.”
Ethan looked at Naomi.
“Add that to the record.”
Lila’s voice shook. “I don’t want trouble. I need this job. Maya and I
have been staying with my father since our apartment building had a pipe
burst. I can’t afford to lose another paycheck.”
“You won’t lose your job for speaking honestly,” Ethan said. “And you
won’t be asked to investigate anything. That’s my responsibility.”
Maya pulled a folded drawing from her raincoat pocket.
“I made this for you.”
It showed a man in a wheelchair beside a garden full of bright flowers.
A small girl stood beside him holding a yellow umbrella. Above them, in
uneven letters, were the words: YOU CAN STILL HAVE GOOD DAYS.
Ethan stared at it for a long moment.
“Thank you, Maya.”
“You should put it where you can see it.”
“I will.”
After they left, Naomi received a call from the laboratory. The
preliminary report was not ready, but the sample had been accepted and
the chain of custody was documented.
Then another call came in.
It was from the estate’s head housekeeper.
She had found two medication bottles in Sophia’s private dressing room.
The labels bore Ethan’s name, but the pharmacy numbers did not match the
numbers in his medical file.
Naomi looked at Ethan.
“Someone has been keeping a second set of bottles.”
Ethan’s hands tightened on the armrests.
“Don’t touch them,” he said. “Photograph everything and call the
police.”
For the first time, the investigation was no longer based on a child’s
May you like
memory.
There was evidence inside his own home.
