“Mrs. Anderson,” Detective Williams began, her tone gentle but skeptical. “Mr. Miller has presented a very different sequence of events.”
“He’s a liar and a murderer,” I said flatly, staring a hole through the two-way mirror. I knew Derek was likely on the other side, or in a similar room, spinning his webs.
“Mr. Miller claims that Jessica was suffering from severe, untreated clinical depression,” Detective Miller read from his notepad. “He says she hid the pregnancy from him because she didn’t want the child. He claims she had been buying unregulated abortifacients online. He says two nights ago, he caught her taking them. He tried to stop her, which explains the bruising on her arms and neck—a physical struggle to save her life. He says the pills triggered a massive, fatal cardiac event.”
My jaw dropped. The sheer audacity, the intricate cruelty of the lie, took my breath away. It was brilliant. It explained the lack of medical history, the hidden pregnancy, the bruising, and the heart failure.
“And why the rush to cremate?” I demanded, my voice shaking with rage.
“He says it was her written wish, which he provided to us. A letter dated two months ago, expressing a desire not to be autopsied due to her severe anxiety,” Williams replied.
“It’s a forgery! He gaslighted her in life, and now he’s gaslighting her in death!” I slammed my hands on the table. “He beat her to death! You have to search his house!”
“We can’t just tear apart a grieving man’s home without probable cause, Mrs. Anderson. The medical examiner is performing the autopsy now, but if the toxicology comes back positive for these black-market pills, it corroborates his story perfectly.” Williams sighed, leaning forward. “He also expressed deep concern for your mental health. He mentioned your history of trauma since your husband’s death, and he intends to seek full emergency custody of Ethan tonight. He feels you are a danger to the boy.”
The room spun. He’s going to win. He had built a fortress of lies, and the police were handing him the keys. He was going to walk away with my daughter’s life, her money, and my grandson.
“Can I see Ethan?” I whispered, utterly defeated.
Williams nodded sympathetically and led me into the bullpen. Ethan was sitting on a plastic chair, kicking his legs, clutching a paper cup of water.
When he saw me, he didn’t run to me. He stood up slowly. His eyes were completely dilated, making his irises look like black holes. The temperature in the bullpen seemed to drop ten degrees. The officers typing at their desks paused, rubbing their arms against the sudden chill.
Ethan dropped the paper cup. Water splashed across the linoleum.
He clutched his stomach, his face contorting into an expression of raw, visceral agony. He gasped for air, his chest heaving irregularly.
“Ethan!” I rushed forward, catching him as his knees buckled.
“She’s… she’s so angry,” Ethan choked out, his voice echoing with that same dual-tone resonance. It wasn’t just a child speaking; it was a woman screaming from the void. “He’s lying, Mom. He’s lying!”
Detective Williams stepped back, her hand instinctively hovering near her radio. “Mrs. Anderson, what is wrong with him? Does he need a paramedic?”
“Listen to him!” I yelled.
Ethan grabbed my collar, pulling my ear down to his mouth. “The sunflower, Grandma,” he wheezed, his eyes rolling back slightly. “He didn’t find the sunflower. Behind the sun. The truth is behind the sun.”
Ethan went completely limp in my arms, passing out from the sheer physical toll of the connection.
“Get a medic!” Williams shouted.
As they loaded Ethan onto a stretcher, my mind raced through every corner of Jessica’s life. The sunflower. Behind the sun.
Jessica was a graphic designer. She painted. Her home studio was filled with canvases. But there was one specific painting—a massive, vibrant field of sunflowers that Derek absolutely hated, claiming it clashed with his minimalist aesthetic. He had forced her to hang it in the dark, windowless storage room in the basement.
“Detective,” I grabbed Williams’ arm as she turned to follow the paramedics. “Derek is being released soon, isn’t he?”
“Pending the toxicology report, yes. We can’t hold him,” she admitted.
“Keep him here. For one hour. Ask him about his finances, his affairs, make up whatever you have to. Just keep him in that room.”
“Why?” she narrowed her eyes.
“Because I’m going to get you your probable cause,” I said, a cold, hard resolve settling over my grief.
I drove to Derek’s house like a woman possessed. I still had the emergency key Jessica had given me years ago, hidden in the fake rock near the porch. I knew that entering the house without a warrant or permission was technically trespassing, maybe even burglary, and could render evidence inadmissible. I didn’t care. If Derek got home and destroyed it, justice would be permanently out of reach.
The house was eerily silent, smelling of expensive leather and bleach. Derek had cleaned.
I bypassed the pristine living room and headed straight for the basement stairs. The air grew colder as I descended into the darkness. I flicked on the single overhead bulb in the storage room.
There it was. Pushed against the back wall, obscured by boxes of winter coats and old tax files—the sunflower painting. It was nearly five feet wide.
I scrambled over the boxes, tearing my stockings, my breath coming in ragged gasps. I grabbed the heavy wooden frame and pulled it away from the wall.
Nothing. Just drywall.
“Dammit, Jessica,” I cried, hitting the wall. “Behind the sun. What did you mean?”
I looked at the back of the canvas itself. The wooden stretcher bars were thick. In the top right corner, directly behind where the largest, brightest sunflower was painted on the front, there was a small, rectangular lump beneath the canvas fabric, taped securely to the wood.
My hands shook as I peeled back the heavy-duty duct tape.
It was an old smartphone. One Jessica hadn’t used in three years. It was dead.
I ran upstairs to her home office, tearing through her desk drawers until I found a tangle of old charging cables. I plugged the phone into the wall outlet. The screen remained black for an eternity. Please, God. Please.
Finally, a faint white battery icon appeared. It booted up. There was no passcode; she had factory reset it before hiding it.
I opened the voice memos app. There was only one file. It was an hour long, recorded two nights ago. The night she died.
I pressed play.
For the first few minutes, there was just the rustle of fabric. She had hidden the phone in her pocket. Then, the sound of a door opening.
“Derek? We need to talk,” Jessica’s voice echoed in the quiet office. Hearing her alive, her voice thick with fear, was a knife twisting in my heart.
“I’m busy, Jess. What is it?” Derek’s voice was cold, impatient.
“I… I went to the doctor today. Derek, I’m pregnant. Four months.”
There was a long, terrifying silence on the recording.
“You’re what?” Derek’s voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. “We discussed this. We agreed. No children. My career is finally taking off, I am not throwing my money into a college fund.”
