Chapter 6 - THE FINGERPRINT THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST
Maya did not sleep.
At six in the morning she was back in the federal field office.
The bottle sat inside a clear evidence bag on the other side of the glass.
Her fingerprints were on it.
That fact was impossible.
Then memory made it possible.
Four years earlier, after David's mother died, Maya had helped sort medications for disposal.
She had touched dozens of bottles.
She might have touched this one.
Marcus listened carefully.
"Was the bottle empty then?"
"I don't know."
"Did you personally dispose of it?"
"No. David said he would handle the prescriptions because some had controlled disposal rules."
"Tacrolimus isn't controlled in that sense, but he could have told you that."
Maya stared through the glass.
"So my print proves nothing."
"It proves you handled the bottle at some point."
"Which his lawyers will use."
Marcus nodded.
"Yes."
Maya looked at him.
"They are going to say I poisoned Lily."
Marcus did not answer.
"Say it."
"If the prosecution pursues a poisoning theory, the defense will likely argue alternative access."
"They will say I did it because I was anxious and unstable."
"They may."
Maya laughed bitterly.
"David spent years building that story for them."
"Maybe."
"Not maybe."
She stood.
"Every therapist appointment he suggested. Every time he told friends I worried too much. Every time he said I was overprotective."
Marcus watched her.
"He was creating a witness list."
"Or he was being a manipulative husband. We cannot retroactively turn every bad act into a conspiracy."
Maya hated his caution.
She also knew he was right.
That made it worse.
At nine, David's defense team filed an emergency motion accusing investigators of leaking prejudicial information to the press.
At ten, a national news channel aired a photograph of Maya leaving the courthouse under the headline GRIEVING WIFE OR FINANCIAL REVENGE?
At eleven, an anonymous source claimed Maya had suffered from panic attacks and had once "obsessively monitored" Lily's health.
By noon, clips of Maya from a charity luncheon three years earlier were being replayed online.
People dissected her face.
Too cold.
Too controlled.
Too thin.
Too angry.
A stranger wrote that a real mother would not have gone to court so soon after burial.
Another wrote that a real mother would have told her husband his daughter was dead.
Maya turned off the television.
"Nathan."
She said the name aloud.
Marcus looked up from his phone.
"What?"
"Nathan is feeding them this."
"Probably through intermediaries."
"Can you stop it?"
"Not all of it."
"Then I want to respond."
"No."
"You cannot keep telling me no while they turn me into a murderer."
"Public opinion is not the courtroom."
"Public opinion finds jurors."
Marcus paused.
"That's fair."
Maya sat back.
"I have records."
"Of what?"
"David's pattern."
She opened her laptop.
Years of emails appeared.
David criticizing her in careful language.
You are catastrophizing again.
Please do not embarrass us with another health panic.
Lily has a normal fever. Stop making everything an emergency.
One message stood out.
It was dated eight months earlier.
Maya had asked whether David would attend a parent-teacher meeting because Lily had been bullied.
David replied.
This constant crisis mentality is unhealthy. You are teaching her fragility.
Maya stared at the words.
"He trained me not to call him."
Marcus looked over her shoulder.
"What do you mean?"
"Every time something happened, he punished me socially for treating it as important."
She opened more messages.
Lily fell from playground equipment.
Stop panicking.
Lily had an allergic rash.
Stop panicking.
Lily woke with chest pain.
Stop panicking.
Maya felt sick.
"By the time she was in ICU, I was apologizing in my voicemails for bothering him."
Marcus's expression hardened.
Maya pressed play on one saved voicemail.
Her own voice filled the room.
David, I'm sorry, I know you said not to call, but Lily is really sick and the doctors are worried. Please call me when you can.
Maya stopped the recording.
"I apologized."
Her voice broke.
"My daughter was dying and I apologized for interrupting his vacation."
Marcus closed the laptop gently.
"That is not evidence of guilt."
"It is evidence of what he did to my mind."
At two that afternoon, another piece of evidence arrived.
A pharmacy camera.
The tacrolimus pills found in the old bottle were manufactured less than six months earlier.
Someone had filled a new prescription using the identity of a deceased woman.
The prescription was picked up at a suburban pharmacy twelve days before David left for Nassau.
The person on camera wore a baseball cap and surgical mask.
Height approximately five ten.
Slim build.
Could be male or female.
The payment card was prepaid.
But the car leaving the parking lot was visible.
A black Range Rover.
Registered to Julianne Price.
Julianne's attorney immediately requested another meeting.
This time, Marcus allowed Maya to watch from behind one-way glass.
Julianne entered wearing county-issued clothing.
Her glamorous yacht tan looked sickly beneath fluorescent lights.
She sat with both hands around a paper cup.
"I did not poison that child."
Her lawyer touched her arm.
"Answer only the questions asked."
Julianne ignored him.
"I picked up a prescription for David."
The prosecutor leaned forward.
"Whose prescription?"
"He said it was for his mother."
"His mother had been dead for four years."
Julianne's face twisted.
"I didn't know that."
Behind the glass, Maya whispered.
"Liar."
Marcus said nothing.
The prosecutor continued.
"What did David say the medication was for?"
Julianne looked down.
"He said it was immune medication for a research consultant."
"Why was it under his deceased mother's name?"
"He told me it was easier because she had an existing patient profile."
The prosecutor stared at her.
"And that did not concern you?"
Julianne began to cry.
"Everything concerns me now."
Maya felt no sympathy.
"Did you ever see David administer medication to Lily?"
Julianne shook her head.
"No."
"Did you ever hear him discuss doing so?"
Another shake.
Then she stopped.
"Wait."
The room went silent.
"There was a drink."
Maya leaned toward the glass.
"What drink?"
The prosecutor asked.
"The night before we left. I was at the house because David said we needed to finalize travel documents. Lily came downstairs. She said she couldn't sleep."
Maya's heart slammed against her ribs.
She had been upstairs packing.
"What happened?"
"David made her warm milk."
Maya closed her eyes.
Lily loved warm milk with honey.
"Did you see him put anything in it?"
Julianne stared at the table.
"I saw him crush something."
Maya's knees weakened.
Marcus caught her elbow.
Inside the room, the prosecutor spoke very slowly.
"What did you see him crush?"
"A pill."
"Did you ask why?"
Julianne nodded.
"He said Lily couldn't swallow tablets."
The prosecutor leaned forward.
"And you believed that?"
Julianne began sobbing.
"I didn't know what it was."
Maya pushed away from the glass.
She wanted to enter the room.
She wanted to drag Julianne out of the chair and demand why she had watched a married man crush a pill into a child's milk without asking what it was.
Marcus blocked the door.
"No."
"Move."
"No."
"She watched him."
"And now she is giving evidence."
"Because she wants immunity."
"Probably."
Maya's breathing became ragged.
Marcus lowered his voice.
"Do not give David's defense footage of you attacking their cooperating witness."
That sentence stopped her.
Maya stepped back.
Through the glass, Julianne wiped her face.
Then the prosecutor asked one final question.
"Why are you telling us this now?"
Julianne looked toward the mirror.
For one terrifying second, Maya felt as though Julianne could see her.
"Because David told me something on the yacht after Maya's message came through."
Maya stopped.
"What did he say?"
Julianne whispered.
"He said, 'Now there is no one left who can challenge the trust except Maya.'"
The prosecutor's eyes sharpened.
"And then?"
Julianne swallowed.
May you like
"Then he said, 'And Maya has always been easier to discredit than to kill.'"
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