Chapter 2 - Fifty Rejected Calls
The death certificate slipped from David’s hand.
It floated onto the marble floor between us.
For several seconds, he simply stared at it.
Then he shook his head.
“No.”
He looked at me again.
“No, Maya.”
“You would have told me.”
I felt something cold move through my chest.
“I tried.”
David’s breathing became shallow.
“What do you mean?”
I reached into my pocket.
My old phone was still there.
I had kept it for one reason.
Evidence.
I unlocked the screen.
Then I turned it toward him.
Fifty outgoing calls.
All made on the same night.
All to David.
Forty-seven rejected.
Three unanswered.
His eyes moved slowly down the screen.
10:42 p.m.
10:44 p.m.
10:47 p.m.
10:49 p.m.
11:03 p.m.
11:11 p.m.
11:28 p.m.
Midnight.
1:16 a.m.
2:07 a.m.
3:41 a.m.
The final call had been made less than one minute before Lily’s heart stopped.
David stared at the list.
Then he looked at Julianne.
She stepped backward.
“I didn’t know.”
Her voice was barely audible.
David turned toward me again.
“Maya, I swear to God, I didn’t know.”
I pulled up his final message.
The one I had memorized.
The one I could still see whenever I closed my eyes.
Stop suffocating me with your anxiety, Maya.
I am on a digital detox trip for my mental health.
Do not contact me for the next two weeks.
David read his own words.
His face twisted.
“I thought you were calling about us.”
“You thought wrong.”
“Why didn’t the hospital call me?”
“They did.”
I swiped to another screen.
Twenty-three calls from the hospital’s main number.
Six calls from the pediatric ICU.
Two voicemails from Lily’s doctor.
David’s phone records later showed that he had blocked the hospital number after the third call.
His eyes widened.
“I didn’t block them.”
Julianne froze.
It was tiny.
Barely noticeable.
But Adrian Cole noticed it too.
He looked at her.
David did not.
“You blocked the number,” I said.
“No.”
“I didn’t.”
His voice became desperate.
“Maya, I would never do that.”
“Someone did.”
Silence filled the room.
David slowly turned toward Julianne.
She shook her head immediately.
“Don’t look at me.”
“You had my phone.”
“Because you gave it to me.”
“You said you wanted me to keep you from checking work.”
David stared at her.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
Her voice rose.
“I put it in the safe.”
“Then how was Maya’s number rejected fifty times?”
Julianne opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Agent Cole stepped between them.
“We’ll discuss the phone later.”
David whipped around.
“What does my phone have to do with a financial crimes task force?”
Adrian closed the leather folder.
“Quite a lot.”
David looked confused.
Adrian continued.
“Mrs. Vance contacted an attorney forty-eight hours after her daughter’s death.”
“She discovered irregularities in several family accounts.”
David’s face changed instantly.
Not grief this time.
Fear.
May you like
And that was when I knew the investigators had been right.
He already knew what they were going to find.
