The Perfect Child(79)

I nodded.

“Piper will be involved as well. We’ll be working as a team. She’ll work more directly with the Department of Children’s Services, and I’m the social worker assigned by the hospital.”

“Why do we need two social workers?” I asked.

“We always assign two social workers in cases like these.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Cases like what?”

“Investigations of child abuse.”





FORTY-NINE

HANNAH BAUER

I wanted to speak, but I was locked in the background of my head and had lost the ability to communicate with the world outside me. The world pulsed and thrummed around me, warping my vision into blackening fear. The hospital lights were too bright and jarring. My thoughts moved so fast I couldn’t discern any particular one except the constant desperate begging of my psyche to every god in the universe: Please don’t let my baby die.

I could see and feel everything. I felt the prick of the needle and the wetness of the cotton swab when they shot me full of Valium. I heard everything the doctors and nurses said as they swarmed the room like bees. Their discussions about the CT scan not showing blood on Cole’s brain and how they would do an MRI to catch anything the CT scan might have missed. Their assurances that his brain just needed to rest after what it’d been through.

Everyone kept asking me what had happened, and I wanted to tell them. My mind told my body to speak the words, but it refused. The connection between the two was unplugged, severed. Parts had folded into blackness and created a void. All I could do was listen helplessly as Holly drilled Christopher with questions. I’d never seen him look as furious as he did when she mentioned child abuse.

“Child abuse? Are you serious?” The anger radiated off him.

Holly didn’t skip a beat. “Weren’t you questioned the last time Janie was in the emergency room?”

“Yes, but that was different.”

“How was that different?” She crossed her arms on her chest. “Didn’t a hospital social worker interview you then?”

He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and loosened his collar like it was choking him. “He did. He asked us what happened to Janie, and we told him. End of story. He never accused us of child abuse.”

She balked in mock surprise. “I didn’t accuse you of child abuse either.”

“Yes, you did.” The cords on his neck stood out.

She shook her head. “No, I said we are investigating the possibility of child abuse.”

“How is that any different?” He glared at her.

“Mr. Bauer, I understand that you’re upset. Today has been a very difficult day. I’m just trying to do my job.” She took a step back from him, creating more space between them. Christopher took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair.

Relax, Christopher. Just relax.

We needed him to be strong. All of us.

He cracked his knuckles and stretched. “So what do you need from me?”

“We need to know what happened at your home today. Is there anything you can think of that might help us figure it out?”

He let out a deep sigh. “I wasn’t there.”

“Who was there?”

“Hannah and the kids.”

“And you’re sure of that?”

He nodded.

The questions went on and on. They spoke around me like I wasn’t there. I couldn’t keep up with the plot or process the information correctly. The sound of Cole’s skull as it cracked against the side of the porcelain tub interrupted everything they said, everything that was going on around me. It forced its way in unbidden. He was never supposed to get hurt.





CASE #5243

INTERVIEW: PIPER GOLDSTEIN

“Is it common for parents to act the way Hannah did in the hospital?” Luke asked.

“Yes.”

“So you’d seen it before?” He and Ron exchanged another glance like they’d been doing all afternoon.

“I have.” Previous cases flashed through my mind in snippets. The teenage mother who’d given birth in the locker room after hiding her pregnancy from everyone and hadn’t spoken for two weeks afterward. The nine-year-old boy who’d gone into catatonic depression after being removed from his mother’s care. And the Vaughn baby. “Sometimes the brain shuts down after trauma for a while.”

“That’s what everyone believed was going on with Hannah? Some kind of traumatic shock?”

“We had no reason not to.”

“But not Holly. She filed a Child in Need of Protective Services order given the nature of Cole’s injuries.” He tapped his pen on the table.

I understood Holly’s concerns even if I hadn’t agreed with filing the report because I’d seen the type of injuries Cole had had before. They were rare in babies who hadn’t been shaken, but just because it was unlikely didn’t mean it was impossible, and he was missing all the other signs. Nothing else pointed toward abuse. He didn’t have any of the rib fractures, seizures, or bruises that you typically saw. But mostly, I knew it wasn’t abuse because it was the Bauers. There was no way Hannah had hurt Cole. Not even a chance.

“Take me through what happened after the Child in Need of Protective Services order was filed.”