Detective Castillo
Chapter 04 - Detective Castillo
Detective Wren Castillo arrived at Nathan's house the following morning, having been assigned the case once Dr. Reyes's mandatory report triggered a formal police referral.
She was a careful, thorough woman in her mid-forties who had spent twelve years investigating cases involving harm to children, and who carried the specific, practiced composure of someone who had long ago learned to set aside her own emotional response to what she heard until after the interview was complete.
"I want to walk through the timeline with you," she told Nathan, settling into the living room while Lily remained upstairs with Nathan's neighbor, a retired teacher named Helen Park who had come over immediately the night before and hadn't left since.
Nathan described everything, the muffled cry from the freezer, pulling Lily out, Evelyn's appearance in the doorway, her specific, chilling defense that closing the lid was simply discipline.
"She told me she did it for five minutes," Nathan said. "As though that somehow made it acceptable. I don't know the actual duration. Lily couldn't tell me clearly."
"Lily told the ER doctor this has happened four or five times," Castillo said. "Over approximately five months. Is that consistent with the timeline of your mother's involvement in this household."
"She moved in three weeks after the divorce finalized," Nathan confirmed. "To help with Lily while I worked. I trusted her completely."
"Was there anything before this that concerned you," Castillo asked. "Any sign, however small, that something wasn't right in how she was treating Lily."
Nathan sat with the question for a long, painful moment. "Lily's been quieter the past few months. I attributed it to the divorce, adjusting to her mother not being here full-time anymore. She stopped wanting to stay home when I went to work. I thought she was just missing me."
He paused, a specific, devastating realization crossing his face. "She was trying to avoid being alone with my mother. That's what the clinginess was. Not missing me. Fear."
Castillo made careful notes. "I'm going to need to interview Lily formally, with a forensic interviewer trained specifically in working with children this age. I want to be thorough about documenting her account before we proceed with formal charges."
"Formal charges," Nathan repeated, a complicated wave of relief and grief moving through him simultaneously. "Against my own mother."
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"Against whoever did this to your daughter," Castillo said gently. "I understand the family dimension makes this considerably more painful than it would be otherwise. I want you to understand that the law doesn't distinguish between a stranger and a grandmother when it comes to a child's safety."
"I know," Nathan said. "I want charges. I want whatever legal protection exists to make sure she never has access to Lily again."
