Chapter 3 - The Examination Room
Doctors documented twenty-three separate injuries.
Twenty-three.
I had counted twenty strikes.
But the fall into the coffee table had created three more.
A fractured wrist.
Deep bruising along my ribs.
A cut across my palm requiring seven stitches.
The doctor who examined my back became very quiet halfway through.
He asked the nurse to photograph everything.
Then he asked whether I felt safe returning home.
"No."
The answer came easily.
That frightened me more than the question.
A police detective arrived just before one in the morning.
Detective Lena Ortiz looked about forty-five and spoke without wasting words.
She sat beside the bed with a notebook closed on her lap.
"I'm not asking you to decide your entire future tonight."
I nodded.
"I just need you to tell me what happened."
So I did.
Not beautifully.
Not chronologically.
But honestly.
I told her about Lauren.
The garage camera.
Matthew's accusation.
The cane.
The twenty blows.
The moment he walked away.
The command to clean myself up.
Detective Ortiz never interrupted except to clarify times.
When I finished, she asked one question.
"Has he hit you before?"
My father stiffened near the window.
I stared at the blanket.
"Not like this."
"That's not what I asked."
My throat tightened.
"He shoved me once."
"When?"
"Last Christmas."
"Anything else?"
I remembered Matthew gripping my chin so hard my jaw hurt for two days.
I remembered a plate thrown against the wall beside my head.
I remembered him locking me out on the balcony in January because I contradicted him during dinner.
"Yes."
My father turned away.
I could see the muscles working in his jaw.
Detective Ortiz wrote quietly.
"Did you photograph those incidents?"
"No."
"Tell anyone?"
"No."
"Why?"
The answer should have been complicated.
It wasn't.
"Because every time something happened, I convinced myself the next thing would be the last thing."
She nodded.
"I hear that a lot."
A nurse entered carrying a small evidence bag.
Inside was my torn blouse.
Detective Ortiz signed a form.
Then her phone vibrated.
She checked it.
Her eyebrows lifted slightly.
"Your husband is no longer at the penthouse."
My father looked over.
"Where is he?"
"We don't know."
"How did he leave?"
"Security footage shows him returning at 12:36."
I stared at her.
"He came back?"
"He stayed downstairs for less than three minutes."
"Why didn't he come up?"
"Because police were already in the apartment."
A chill moved through me.
"What did he do?"
"He saw the officers through the lobby camera monitor and left through the garage."
My father gave a humorless laugh.
"Coward."
Detective Ortiz ignored him.
"His attorney contacted us twenty minutes ago."
"Already?"
"People with money rarely wait to hire lawyers."
She closed the notebook.
"He claims there was a marital argument and that any injuries occurred when you became emotionally distressed and broke a vase."
My father's hand tightened around the windowsill.
I felt strangely calm.
"Of course he does."
"He also claims the cane is ceremonial and was never used."
I almost laughed.
Detective Ortiz leaned forward.
"The cane has what appears to be blood on it."
My father's eyes closed briefly.
"The lab will confirm whose."
She stood.
"I'm requesting a temporary order of protection."
"Thank you."
She stopped at the door.
"There's something else."
"What?"
"When officers searched the visible area around the sofa, they found a small security camera."
My stomach dropped.
"A camera?"
"Hidden inside a decorative air-quality monitor."
I stared at her.
"I didn't install one."
"Did your husband?"
"I don't know."
Detective Ortiz's expression sharpened.
"If it recorded tonight, this case may become very simple."
My father turned slowly toward me.
But I was already remembering something.
Three months earlier, Matthew had insisted on replacing every smart device in the apartment.
He said our home network needed better security.
For the first time since entering the hospital, fear gave way to something else.
Hope.
Not because I wanted to watch what had happened.
I never wanted to see those twenty blows again.
May you like
But if the camera had seen them...
Matthew's version of the night had just acquired a very serious problem.
