-DCS.

-DCS is on the way. The on-call investigator is a woman named Renée Talbot. She’s good. She’ll want to talk to both of you. Separately. And she’s going to have to make a safety decision before your daughter is discharged.

-What kind of safety decision?

-If she can’t determine which parent is safe, she may remove Chloe from both of you. Temporary custody. Usually that means a kinship placement first. A relative.

-Which relative?

Marquez didn’t answer.

She didn’t have to.

-My mother-in-law.

-She’s already offered. Through the lawyer. She said she’d take Chloe home with her until things are sorted out.

I stood very still in the bright hallway.

The doors to the OR were behind me. Somewhere past them, a surgeon was cutting into my daughter’s back to take out a piece of her grandmother’s sewing needle.

And her grandmother had just volunteered to take her home.

-Detective Marquez.

-Yes.

-There’s something you need to see.

She looked at me.

-Before you go into that room. Before DCS gets here. Before anybody writes anything down about my temper.

-What is it?

I held up my phone.

-A recording. From tonight.

The family consultation room was small and beige. Two upholstered couches. A box of tissues on a side table. A framed print of a saguaro at sunset. A coffee maker nobody ever used.

Christopher sat on one couch. He’d showered. He was wearing jeans and a gray quarter-zip sweater and his good watch. His hair was neat. His eyes were red. He looked exactly like a frightened father.

Gertrude sat beside him. Still in her coat. Her purse in her lap. Her hands folded over it.

On the other couch, a man in his fifties. Navy suit. No tie. Silver hair. Rimless glasses. A leather portfolio open on his knee. He stood up when Detective Marquez came in.

-Detective. Martin Delacroix. I represent Mr. Vaughn.

-I know who you are.

He looked past her at me.

-Mrs. Vaughn. I’m going to ask that you not address my client directly.

I didn’t say anything.

Christopher looked up at me.

For a second, something flickered in his face. Then it was gone, and he was a frightened father again.

-Cass. How is she?

I didn’t answer him.

-Cass, please. Is she in surgery? Is she okay?

Delacroix put a hand on his arm.

-Christopher.

-I just want to know if my daughter is okay.

My daughter.

I looked at him and felt nothing. Not rage. Not grief. Nothing at all. A flat white space where my marriage had been sixteen minutes before one forty-seven.

Detective Marquez sat down in a chair between the two couches.

-Mr. Vaughn. Mrs. Vaughn senior. I want to go over a few things.

-Of course.

-Mr. Vaughn, what time did you wake up tonight?

-When Chloe screamed. Around quarter to two, I think.

-Were you awake at any point before that?

-No. I was asleep. I have a big presentation this morning. I’d taken something to help me sleep.

-What did you take?

-Just melatonin.

-And when your daughter screamed, what did you do?

He swallowed.

-I’m ashamed of this. I told Cass to quiet her. I thought it was a nightmare. She’s been having a lot of them. I didn’t. I didn’t realize.

-You didn’t look at her back?

-No.

-You didn’t know anything was wrong with her back.

-Not tonight. I’d seen bruises before. That’s why I’d been taking pictures. That’s why I talked to Martin.

-But tonight you didn’t look.

-No. I was asleep.

Delacroix leaned forward.

-Detective, my client has been extremely forthcoming. He has provided photographs of bruising on the child dating back six weeks. He has kept a written log. He consulted me on September twelfth specifically because he was concerned about the child’s safety in his wife’s care. We have an emergency petition for temporary custody prepared for filing at eight a.m. in Maricopa County Superior Court. We’d ask that DCS consider placing Chloe with her paternal grandmother pending the outcome of that hearing.

Marquez looked at Gertrude.

-Mrs. Vaughn. Where were you at one thirty this morning?

Gertrude lifted her chin.

-In bed. Asleep. In my suite.

-And when did you wake up?

-When the child screamed.

-And you were fully dressed, with your coat and keys, by one forty-seven?

-I sleep lightly. I dress quickly. I am a mother. I knew something was wrong.

-How?

-The scream.

-You were already in your coat when you got to the bedroom door. Mrs. Vaughn says you were standing there less than a minute after Chloe started screaming.

-Mrs. Vaughn is mistaken.

-You also told her not to call an ambulance.

-I said I would drive. It was faster.

-Faster to where?

-To the hospital.

-This hospital?