Chapter 15 - The Lie Elena Told

Paul didn't accuse Elena in the hallway. He asked Leah to arrange a recorded interview with an attorney available to protect her rights. Elena saw the photograph and closed her eyes.

“I was there,” she said.

“You told us you were in hiding.”

“I was. But I went back.”

“Why?”

“Grant said he'd release the girls if I signed a statement saying Richard had invented the allegations. I went to get the girls. They weren't there.”

Elena explained that she had spent two weeks trying to persuade a clinic receptionist to help her locate the treatment records. The receptionist sent the photograph because she recognized Elena as a mother being deceived. Then the woman stopped answering her calls.

“Why didn't you tell us?” Paul asked.

“Because I signed their statement. I thought you'd see my name on it and decide I was part of it.”

Leah didn't promise immunity or forgiveness. She told Elena that the document mattered and that the investigators would verify her account. Elena nodded and produced a second copy from a sewn pocket in her travel bag. She had carried it for months like a stone.

On page four, beneath her forced signature, was a witness signature from Captain Owen Vale. The date matched his official duty log, which showed he was supposed to be forty miles away.

Elena told Leah she'd kept two versions of every memory: the one Grant repeated aloud and the one she wrote secretly in a notebook. One said the girls were dramatic; the other listed dates they came home frightened. One said Richard was unreliable; the other remembered him kneeling to speak to Nora instead of towering over her. At last, somebody was reading the notebook.

Meanwhile, Violet's condition continued improving. The physician said the immediate danger appeared to be passing, though follow-up would be necessary. It was the first good news anyone trusted enough to celebrate.

Then Nora told Elena something new. “When Daddy called the lawyer, he always said, 'Tell Mr. Price the little one remembers.'”

“The little one?” Elena asked.

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Violet raised her hand.

“I remember the man in the room,” she said. “It wasn't Daddy. It was the man who came to the hospital with papers.”