Chapter 3 - The Tea Drawer
Police searched the Callahan house before dawn.
Renata was not arrested yet.
She was told to stay elsewhere while investigators reviewed the evidence.
She left smiling.
That bothered Emma more than tears would have.
"She thinks she's coming back," Emma said.
Grant stood in the kitchen staring at the tea cabinet.
"Then let's make sure she doesn't."
Detective Ruiz photographed every container.
One drawer held chamomile, mint, lemon ginger, and a small unlabeled tin.
Emma frowned.
"I've never seen that."
Grant opened it.
Inside were pale tablets crushed into powder.
Ruiz stopped him before he touched anything.
"Hands off."
A forensic tech bagged the tin.
Grant leaned against the counter.
"I watched her make that tea."
Emma looked at him.
"You didn't know."
"I didn't ask."
"That's different."
"Not to Lily."
That sentence stayed in the room.
Later, Emma helped Maria, the housekeeper, change Lily's sheets.
Maria kept looking toward the hall.
"What?" Emma asked.
Maria swallowed. "Miss Claire asked me once if Renata came into the kitchen at night."
Emma turned.
"When?"
"Two weeks before the accident."
"What did you tell her?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you tell Grant?"
Maria's eyes filled with shame.
"Mrs. Claire made me promise. She said she needed proof first."
Emma sat on the edge of the bed.
"Proof of what?"
Maria shook her head.
"She only said, 'If I am right, this isn't about me.'"
Lily stood in the doorway holding a stuffed rabbit.
"Mom hid a phone."
Both women froze.
Emma crouched.
"Where?"
Lily pointed toward Claire's old dressing room.
Grant unlocked the room that afternoon.
Nothing had been changed since Claire died.
Her perfume still sat on the vanity.
Her robe still hung behind the door.
Lily walked to a floor vent.
"Here."
Grant removed the grate.
Inside was a small phone wrapped in a scarf.
The battery was dead.
But when a technician powered it on, there were fourteen unsent voice recordings.
The first was dated nine days before Claire's death.
Grant pressed play.
Claire's voice filled the room.
"If anyone finds this, Renata knows I'm watching her.
Grant later stood alone in the kitchen after everyone left. He opened the cabinet, saw the row of harmless tea boxes, and remembered every night he had kissed Lily goodnight while Renata carried in a cup.
Nathan found him there.
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"You can't replay two years in one night," he said.
Grant answered, "Watch me."
