Chapter 13 - The Call That Closed the Distance
The deputy didn't hand me my phone. He held it in his own palm and looked at me straight.
"One call," he said. "Speaker. In this room. You pick someone who can prove where you've been working."
My hands were shaking too much to scroll, so he tilted the screen toward me and let me say the name. "Maya Alvarez," I said. "Last month. Night shifts. She'll have the dates."
He found the contact and tapped it. The room went so quiet I could hear the soft buzz of the background lights and Nico's small breathing against my shoulder. The man stood two feet away with his arms crossed tight over his navy suit, like he was holding himself back from reaching again.
It rang twice. Then a woman's voice, tired and wary. "Hello?"
"Ma'am, this is Deputy Harlan with the county sheriff," he said, calm and even. "I'm in a private dining room with a woman who says she did night-nanny work for you last month. I need you to confirm that on speaker, with the father present. Is that okay?"
A pause. A baby cried faintly in the background on her end, a different cry, higher and thinner than Nico's had been. "Yes. Who is this about?"
He nodded at me. I leaned a little closer to the phone without moving Nico.
"This is — I worked for you in August," I said. "The overnight shifts. Tuesday through Saturday. Your daughter was three weeks old when I started."
"Oh," Maya said, and her voice softened. "Yeah. Yeah, I remember you. You did the shoulder hold the whole time. She wouldn't sleep flat."
The man didn't move. I could hear his breathing now, short through his nose.
The deputy kept his eyes on him. "Ma'am, can you give me exact dates? And the child's name, for the record?"
"Ellie Alvarez. Born July twenty-second," she said. I heard papers shifting. "She had the log book. Hold on — I've got it here. She worked August twelfth through September second. Nights, ten to six. I paid her through the app. I can send screenshots."
My throat tightened. "Do you still have the photo I sent? The one with her in the yellow blanket?"
"Yes," Maya said at once. "Yellow blanket, gray hat. She was so tiny. You sent it at like four in the morning because she finally slept on your chest."
The deputy looked at the man. "Sir, I'm going to have her send those photos and payment records to my number now. You can look at them with me."
He didn't answer. His jaw worked. Nico shifted against my gray apron, his cheek damp and warm through the fabric, his light blue sleeve bunched up by his wrist. I adjusted my hand under his bottom without thinking, supporting his neck the way I'd done for Ellie a hundred times.
My phone chimed in the deputy's hand. He opened the message and turned the screen so the man could see. I couldn't see it, but I watched the man's face.
He stared. His stubble caught the warm light. His eyes moved once, then again. He didn't reach for the phone.
"Those dates overlap with my son's birth record?" the deputy asked quietly.
The man swallowed. "No," he said. His voice was low, almost gone. "Nico was born... two weeks ago. He was in the hospital until last week."
Nobody spoke for a second. Maya's voice came back, small through the speaker. "Is everything okay? Did something happen to her?"
"No, ma'am," the deputy said. "She's cooperating. Thank you. I'll note your number as a verified reference."
He ended the call. The quiet that filled the wood-paneled room felt heavier than shouting. The background lights blurred behind the man's shoulder. I could hear him breathing, audible now, rough at the edges, like he'd been holding it for an hour and finally let go wrong.
I looked down at Nico's head tucked under my chin, then back up at his father.
"Then why did he reach for me," I said, "if he'd never met me?"
The man blinked. His hands opened and closed at his sides. For the first time that night he didn't have an accusation ready. He just looked at the baby asleep on my shoulder, at the light blue onesie riding up a little in back, at the small reddened mark near his neck that the nurse had already said was rash and friction.
"It wasn't me he knew," I said, quieter. "It was the hold. Upright. Tight. Shushing in his ear. Any exhausted baby leans into that."
May you like
The deputy slipped my phone into his pocket to log later and stepped back to give us air. "Technique explains the calming," he said, for the record. "No prior contact."
The man nodded once, barely moving, and kept staring at his son.
