Chapter 4: Statements
The detectives took my formal statement the following afternoon, once the pain medication had been adjusted enough for coherent speech.
I gave them the sequence without embellishment: Vivian’s eyes before the pot lifted, the exact words about dinner and embarrassment, the sensation of the oil, Daniel stepping over me to wipe his shoes, the practiced story about clumsiness delivered outside the curtain. Lena sat in as my treating physician and confirmed the burn pattern, the inconsistency with a self-spill, and the existence of the preserved kitchen footage. Marcus attended as counsel.
Daniel’s attorney requested access. Marcus declined on my behalf. Vivian’s counsel did the same and received the same answer. No visits. No flowers with notes. No performances of concern delivered to a woman whose back was still weeping under bandages.
May you like
That evening the protective order was entered on an emergency basis: no contact, no approach within a defined distance, no third-party messages. Joint accounts Daniel still believed he influenced were frozen pending further order. The automatic packet had already placed the genuine trust documents, the recordings, and the transaction logs in Marcus’s hands and, through proper channels, into the investigative file.
I slept in fragments. Each time I woke, the white ceiling was still there, the pain was still honest, and the knowledge that the cage had finally been entered into evidence remained the only clean fact in the room.
