Chapter 6 - THE MISTAKE I HANDED HER
Police collected the package.
No usable fingerprints.
The hair was visually similar to Lily’s, but laboratory comparison would take time.
Renata’s lawyer suggested I mailed it to myself for attention.
I lost control.
I drove to the Callahan estate.
The temporary order prohibited contact with Lily, not entry onto property where my belongings remained. My lawyer had still told me not to go without arrangement.
I went anyway.
Harris met me at the gate.
“You cannot be here.”
“I need my notebooks.”
“Police already inventoried your room.”
“I wrote down things Lily did after nightmares.”
That made him hesitate.
I used the hesitation to enter.
My room had been searched. The notebook was missing.
Renata appeared at the end of the hallway under escort for a court-approved belongings retrieval.
She smiled.
“You always come when someone pulls the right string.”
I stepped toward her.
Harris blocked me.
Renata raised her phone.
The recording began with me angry, trespassing after legal advice, moving toward an alleged victim.
I had walked into the image she needed.
Her lawyer used it the next morning to seek a protective order.
The judge denied a broad order but barred me from the estate entirely and extended my separation from Lily.
Grant did not defend my decision.
“You made yourself the story.”
“I was trying to protect her.”
“You were trying to recover control.”
He was right.
That hurt.
Harris later searched the room under warrant and found my notebook inside Renata’s suitcase.
She claimed it had been packed accidentally.
One entry described Lily waking from a nightmare and drawing “Mommy’s blue bottle.”
Renata had known exactly which records frightened me.
The prepaid phone records then produced a new location.
On the morning after Claire’s crash, the device connected near an industrial garage used by Callahan Security.
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Harris had worked there that day.
And the electronic gate log showed he admitted Renata before sunrise.
