Chapter 10 - The Man Who Watched

Frank refused a towel. He sat on the edge of Dana's sofa in his damp jacket and stared at the floor.

"I saw Celia put Lucy inside last Saturday," he said. "I heard her crying. I didn't open the door."

My throat tightened. "Why?"

"Celia told me not to interfere."

"She's six years old."

"I know."

He didn't offer an excuse. It would have been easier to hate him if he had.

"Ben told me you used to leave him there."

"It happened more than once. I was weak. I let myself believe it was discipline."

Dana sat quietly beside me. Lucy was upstairs with headphones and a coloring book; I had not wanted her to hear adults dissect her pain.

Frank took a worn envelope from his jacket. Inside were copies of birthday cards Ben had written as a child. On one, in uneven letters, he had begged his father to come home early because he didn't want to eat the bad dinner.

"I kept those," Frank whispered. "I thought they would remind me to do better. But I never did."

There was also a photograph of a plate holding a blackened slice of meat. The date on the back was almost twenty-five years earlier.

"The black plate," I said.

Frank nodded. "Celia thought embarrassment made children obedient. Later she began using it whenever anyone disagreed with her."

"Why are you telling me now?"

He looked at me for the first time. "Because Lucy asked me to help. And I walked away. I can't pretend I didn't hear her."

I asked if he'd make a written statement. He said yes. He also agreed to speak to Lila directly.

When he rose to leave, his phone buzzed. I saw Celia's name and watched him ignore the call.

"She'll know you came here," I said.

"She probably does."

He stopped on the threshold. "There is one more thing. She hired a man to edit that video. I heard them arguing about the beginning of the clip."

"Who?"

"A social media consultant. He said cutting the beginning would make it look cleaner. Tessa saved the original, but Celia thinks she destroyed it."

Frank lowered his voice.

"And Mara? Celia moved the guardianship hearing up. Her lawyer has requested an urgent date."

He passed me a folded notice he'd taken from her desk.

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The hearing was scheduled for Friday morning.

In forty-one hours, Celia would be sitting across a courtroom asking a judge to give her my child.