Chapter 4 - The Investigation Begins
By late afternoon, Maisie was moved out of the intensive trauma unit and into a private room in the pediatric ward. She was still weak, her eyelids heavy and her little voice raspy, but she was awake.
"Mama..." she whimpered, reaching out her small hand toward me from the hospital bed.
"I'm right here, sweetie," I whispered, pulling up a chair and kissing her tiny knuckles. I picked up her favorite yellow blanket—which Lucas had retrieved from the apartment—and wrapped it around her shoulders. "Mama is right here. You're safe now."
She cuddled into the blanket, her thumbs tucked into her mouth, her soft brown eyes tracking Lucas as he walked around the bed to hand her a small plush bear the hospital staff had given us.
"Bear," she muttered softly, clutching it against her chest.
"That's right, little one," Lucas said softly, running his fingers through her fine hair. "You're safe."
A knock sounded at the open door of the hospital room. Detective Marcus Vance, the officer from the store who was now assigned to the criminal investigation, stepped inside. He carried a leather notepad and looked solemn.
"Ms. Holloway, Mr. Vance," Detective Vance acknowledged, nodding politely. "I'm glad to see the little one is conscious."
"Thank you, Detective," I said, standing up gently so as not to disturb Maisie. "What is going to happen now?"
Detective Vance motioned for us to step into the small sitting area near the corner of the room. "I need to take a formal statement from you regarding the events leading up to this morning, as well as the history of your living arrangement at the store property."
I took a deep breath and began telling him everything. I told him how my father had owned Holloway Home & Tool for thirty years, how he used control over money and housing to manipulate the entire family. I told him how I had moved into the apartment above the store after Maisie was born, working fifty hours a week managing their inventory for below minimum wage just to have a roof over our heads.
I explained how my mother had always favored my sister Tessa, pushing Tessa's daughter Sadie into expensive child pageants while treating Maisie as an unwanted burden.
"They always hated that I had Maisie," I admitted, my voice shaking. "I was twenty-two, single, and refused to give her up for adoption like they wanted. When Lucas came into my life a year ago and proposed to me last night, my parents were furious because they realized I was finally going to leave the store and take Maisie away from their control."
"So last night was your engagement party," Detective Vance noted, writing down every word.
"Yes. And today was Sadie's regional beauty pageant," I added. "My mother told me last night that Maisie was going to 'distract' from Sadie's big day because it was also Maisie's second birthday. She told me to keep Maisie out of sight."
Detective Vance checked his notes. "We interviewed your sister, Tessa, at the station two hours ago. Under interrogation, she broke down completely. She confessed that your mother, Elaine, expressed anger late last night that you were planning to move out next month. Elaine explicitly stated to Warren that 'that child isn't going to drag this family's name down anymore.'"
I pressed my hand against my mouth, feeling sick to my stomach.
"Tessa stated that Warren dissolved six crushed pill tablets of Elaine's prescription Temazepam into Maisie's milk cup," Detective Vance continued quietly. "When the child lost consciousness around 10:00 PM, Warren carried her downstairs. They placed her in the dumpster behind the building and discarded the empty medication bottle to conceal the evidence."
"They intended for her to die," Lucas said, his voice dripping with lethal quietness. "If the morning trash collection truck had come today—which runs every Saturday at 8:00 AM—she would have been crushed in that truck."
Detective Vance looked up, his expression cold and hard. "The trash collector was delayed by thirty minutes today due to a mechanical issue. That delay saved your daughter's life."
The realization hit me like a physical blow. Thirty minutes. A simple mechanical failure was the only reason my baby was still breathing in that bed.
"What are the official charges?" Lucas asked, his professional legal background taking over.
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"Warren Holloway and Elaine Holloway are currently being held without bail," Detective Vance stated firmly. "They are charged with Attempted First-Degree Murder, Felony Child Endangerment, Aggravated Assault on a Minor, and Tampering with Physical Evidence. Tessa Holloway is being charged as an accessory after the fact, though she is cooperating with the District Attorney in exchange for a plea arrangement."
"Good," I said, the sorrow in my heart hardening into pure, unyielding steel. "Don't let them out. Don't ever let them near us again."
