Chapter 8 - Someone Was Still WatchingThe photograph transformed a threat into an emergency.
Research, he said.
Curiosity.
Concern after Leo became sick.
Then the prosecutor displayed the timestamps.
The earliest search had been conducted eleven days before Leo showed any visible symptoms.
Three days before the shed video.
That ended the explanation.
“Were you researching an illness Leo did not yet have?” the prosecutor asked.
Greg’s jaw flexed.
“I don’t remember.”
“You remember almost everything else.”
“My memory isn’t perfect.”
“Neither is Leo’s.”
The objection came immediately.
“Sustained.”
But the jury heard it.
The prosecutor moved on.
She displayed another search.
How to make puncture marks look like insect bites.
Then another.
Can antibiotics hide parasitic infection.
Greg’s face lost color.
The prosecutor walked toward the witness stand.
“You demanded antibiotics when you arrived at St. Catherine’s, correct?”
“I was worried about infection.”
“You told Dr. Morgan it was a spider bite.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“You thought that before anyone examined him?”
“Yes.”
“Despite the fact that you had already researched parasitic infection?”
Greg looked toward his attorney.
The prosecutor waited.
“Mr. Dalton?”
“I don’t remember why I searched that.”
“You also searched ‘how fast concrete dries in cold weather’ the night Emily disappeared.”
His attorney stood.
“Objection!”
Overruled.
Greg stopped answering smoothly after that.
His carefully constructed personality began cracking.
He became irritated.
Then defensive.
Then angry.
By the end of the afternoon, the jury had seen the man I remembered from Room Four.
The man checking his watch while a child sat bruised and frightened beside him.
The man who believed everyone around him was an inconvenience.
Closing arguments began the following Monday.
The prosecutor did not shout.
She didn’t need to.
She laid everything out chronologically.
Emily discovered Greg’s operation.
Emily threatened to expose him.
Greg killed her.
Leo witnessed enough to become dangerous.
Greg attempted to silence him.
Rebecca helped.
When Leo became critically ill sooner than Greg expected, Greg panicked and brought him to the hospital.
Then a doctor touched Leo’s face.
The evidence moved beneath her hand.
And Greg ran.
The defense argued Rebecca had orchestrated everything.
They suggested Emily’s death may have been accidental.
They claimed Leo had been coached.
They claimed police became fixated on Greg before considering alternatives.
Then the jury left.
Waiting was worse than testimony.
The first hour passed.
Then three.
Then six.
No verdict.
Rachel and I sat in a courthouse cafeteria drinking terrible coffee.
“Is that bad?” she asked.
“Long deliberations?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re a doctor.”
“That does not make me psychic.”
She smiled weakly.
“I keep thinking about Emily.”
“So do I.”
“She called me two years ago.”
Rachel stared at her cup.
“I didn’t answer.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I was angry.”
“She had stopped talking to the family.”
“I told myself if she wanted Greg more than us, she could have him.”
Rachel wiped her eyes.
“What if she was trying to leave?”
There was nothing useful I could say.
Regret is cruel because it gives us perfect knowledge after the moment to act has passed.
“You’re here for Leo now,” I said.
“That doesn’t fix Emily.”
“No.”
“But it matters.”
She nodded.
The jury went home without a verdict.
Day two passed.
Still nothing.
On the third morning, the courthouse clerk called.
A verdict.
Leo did not attend.
Rachel wanted him at school.
I agreed.
The courtroom filled.
Greg entered wearing a gray suit.
He looked thinner.
He glanced toward the gallery.
For the first time, our eyes met.
I expected hatred.
Instead, he smiled.
Small.
Cold.
It lasted less than a second.
The jury entered.
The foreperson stood.
Count one.
Murder in the second degree.
“Guilty.”
Rachel grabbed my hand.
Count two.
Attempted murder of a child.
“Guilty.”
Count three.
Aggravated child abuse.
“Guilty.”
Count four.
Evidence tampering.
“Guilty.”
Count five.
Animal cruelty.
“Guilty.”
There were more.
By the final count, Greg no longer looked at the jury.
He stared straight ahead.
Sentencing came six weeks later.
The judge spoke for almost twenty minutes.
She described his actions as deliberate, calculated, and devoid of empathy.
Then she imposed a sentence that made meaningful release unlikely.
Rebecca received twenty-two years under her cooperation agreement.
Some people thought that was too little.
Some thought it was necessary.
Rachel said nothing.
When it was over, she took Leo home and made spaghetti.
That was what he wanted for dinner.
Not justice.
Not speeches.
Spaghetti.
For several months, life became quieter.
I returned to ordinary emergency medicine.
Car crashes.
Fevers.
Broken wrists.
Chest pain.
Children who swallowed coins.
Adults convinced abdominal pain could wait until three in the morning.
Every so often, Leo visited for follow-up.
He grew taller.
His scars faded.
He joined a baseball team.
He hated pitching.
Loved second base.
He still saw Brooks.
Sometimes he asked questions about his mother.
Sometimes he refused to talk about her.
Both were normal.
Then, almost a year after the trial, I received a letter at the hospital.
No return address.
My name handwritten on the front.
Inside was one sentence.
You saved the wrong child.
I read it twice.
Then again.
My hands went cold.
Detective Martinez came to the hospital that afternoon.
“You think Greg sent it?”
“From prison?”
“Possible.”
“He’d know better.”
“Greg knew people.”
She placed the letter into an evidence sleeve.
“Could be harassment.”
“Or Rebecca?”
“She’s incarcerated too.”
“Someone connected to them?”
“That’s what we’ll check.”
I wanted to dismiss it.
A cruel prank.
A bored stranger.
Someone who had followed the trial.
But one detail bothered Martinez.
The paper carried a faint chemical odor.
At the bottom, barely visible, was a small brown stain.
Lab analysis came back two days later.
Animal blood.
Rabbit.
The same species Greg had kept in the shed.
Martinez called Rachel immediately.
Police increased patrols near her home.
Leo was not told about the letter.
Then a second envelope arrived.
This one contained a photograph.
Leo.
Standing outside his new school.
Taken recently.
On the back, four words were written in black ink.
He still knows too much.
Greg was in prison.
May you like
Rebecca was in prison.
So who was watching Leo?
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