Chapter 3 - THE CALL FROM CHICAGO
I let the phone ring four times before I stepped into the hallway and lifted the receiver.
I made sure my voice sounded tired, slightly strained—the exact tone of a man who was struggling to handle a difficult child after a long day.
"Hello?" I said.
"Gideon?" Maris's voice sounded warm, sweet, filled with affectionate concern. "Honey, I tried calling your cell, but it went straight to voicemail. Is everything okay over there? I checked the security camera app on my phone and the living room feed is completely offline."
I looked down at Lumi, who was standing at the end of the hall, watching me with wide, terrified eyes.
"Yeah," I said, putting a hand over my forehead, letting out a heavy sigh for the receiver. "The main circuit breaker tripped about twenty minutes ago. The old wiring in this house is a mess. I haven't had a chance to flip it back on because... well, to be honest, Maris, it's been a rough evening."
A short, subtle pause came from the other end of the line—the quiet beat of a predator confirming that its trap had sprung.
"Did she do it again?" Maris asked softly, her tone dripping with fake sympathy. "Did she cry?"
"She hasn't stopped crying since five o'clock," I lied, keeping my tone frustrated and weary. "She won't eat her dinner. She won't talk to me. Every time I step into the room, she shrinks back like she's terrified of me. Maris... I don't know what to do. I've never had a kid look at me like I'm a monster."
On the other end of the line, I heard the faint click of a pen being capped—a sound I knew Maris made whenever she was checking an item off a list.
"Oh, sweetheart," Maris purred smoothly. "I told you. She's deeply disturbed. Her father's death did something to her head. You're doing great, Gideon. Don't push her. Just leave her in her room. I'm taking an earlier flight home tomorrow morning. We'll talk to a specialist about placing her in a residential child behavioral facility."
A residential facility.
She wanted to lock Lumi away in an institution where the little girl's claims of murder and abuse would be dismissed as the delusions of a traumatized child.
"Okay," I said, keeping my voice raspy. "Drive safe, Maris. I'll see you tomorrow."
"I love you, Gideon," she said warmly. "Make sure you drink that herbal tea I left in the blue canister on the counter. It'll help you sleep."
"I will," I said, and hung up the phone.
I walked straight to the kitchen counter, picked up the blue ceramic canister, and popped the lid off. Inside was an expensive brand of loose-leaf chamomile tea.
I poured a tablespoon of the dry leaves onto a paper towel and examined them under my tactical flashlight beam. Mixed among the dried yellow chamomile flowers were tiny, white, needle-like crystals—completely odorless, perfectly disguised.
Synthetic organophosphate. The exact same compound Dr. Julian Falkner had named in his final letter.
Maris wasn't waiting for a long, drawn-out court battle.
She was planning to return tomorrow morning, find her husband dead in his bed from an "unexpected cardiac arrest" caused by his night-shift stress, and present the police with recorded footage of a terrified, crying stepfather-victim, claiming our marriage had been falling apart due to my unpredictable, erratic behavior.
I looked down at Lumi, who had walked up beside me, staring at the toxic tea leaves on the towel.
"Is she coming back to hurt you like she did Daddy?" Lumi whispered.
May you like
I picked up the blue canister, sealed the lid tight, and slid it directly into my work bag next to the journals, the micro-cassette, and the flash drive.
"No," I said, my voice as hard as surgical steel. "She's coming back to a trap."
