Daniel’s hands began to shake.
He explained what the hospital staff had asked him to preserve: the cream jar, every part of the gift box, every label, and anything Richard might have handled.
Then Daniel looked at me.
“Emma asked me if Grandpa knew it would hurt.”
The sentence took the strength out of my knees.
Not the police car in our driveway.
Not the evidence bags.
Not the bottle beside Richard’s coffee.
My little girl had spent the ride to the hospital trying to decide whether the man who called her his sweet Emma had meant to hear her scream.
One officer sealed the skincare set in a clear evidence bag.
The other lifted the drain-cleaner bottle without opening it and turned it beneath the lamp.
There was pale pink residue dried around the inside edge of the cap.
Daniel saw it at the same moment I did.
