Chapter 4 - LYDIA’S CALL
Harry received Lydia’s call at 9:18 p.m.
He almost didn’t answer.
The number showed as unknown.
Then he heard his niece whispering.
“Uncle Harry?”
He stood immediately.
“Lydia?”
“Mommy won’t wake up right.”
Harry was already grabbing his keys.
“Where’s Daddy?”
“He left.”
“Where are you?”
“Outside.”
“Outside where?”
“Our house.”
It was raining hard enough that Harry could barely hear her.
“Sweetheart, go somewhere safe.”
“I don’t want Daddy to come back.”
That sentence stayed with him.
Harry drove eighteen minutes in nine.
When he reached my street, he saw Lydia crouched beneath the porch awning.
Barefoot.
Crying.
The front door was open.
My husband’s truck was gone.
Brock’s patrol cruiser was pulling away from the far end of the street.
Harry noticed it.
But at the time, he assumed Brock had already called for help.
Then he found me.
I was on the kitchen floor.
I remember pieces of that night.
Trent shouting.
Lydia crying.
My phone disappearing from my hand.
Then Brock’s voice.
That was the part nobody initially understood.
Brock had been inside the house.
He had not arrived afterward.
He had been there during the argument.
The ambulance reached us minutes after Harry.
Brock returned almost simultaneously.
Too quickly.
He took control immediately.
Told paramedics I had fallen.
Told Harry I had been drinking.
Told Lydia to stay quiet while adults handled things.
But Lydia had seen too much.
And children do not always understand which lies adults have agreed to tell.
When Harry carried her toward the ambulance, she kept whispering one thing.
“The police man was already there.”
Harry thought she was confused.
Until Brock grabbed his jacket outside the ER.
“Tell them she fell.”
That was when every detail rearranged itself.
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Brock was not protecting Trent after the fact.
He was protecting himself too.
