Chapter 8 - The Statement Sienna Could Never Take Back
The formal interview lasted almost two hours.
Sienna sat across from a DCFS investigator and repeated everything from the beginning.
This time she did not protect her father from implications.
She described Mark's exact words.
His expression.
The back door.
Evelyn's earlier warnings.
Laura's messages.
The job termination.
Then she said something she'd avoided saying aloud.
“I think he knew Trina was unsafe around Noah before that day.”
The investigator looked up.
“Unsafe how?”
“I don't know that he expected this.”
Sienna swallowed.
“But he knew enough to promise Laura that Trina wouldn't be alone with him.”
“And she was?”
“Yes.”
“Who was responsible for making sure that didn't happen?”
“My dad.”
There.
Once spoken into the official record, it could not be softened later at Thanksgiving or explained away over coffee.
Her father had failed Noah.
Sienna walked outside afterward and sat in her car without starting it.
Her phone showed four missed calls from an unfamiliar number.
The fifth came while she was looking.
She answered.
It was Mark.
A new number.
“You talked to them.”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“The truth.”
“You don't know the truth.”
“Then tell me.”
Mark breathed into the phone.
Sienna waited.
“Laura is using this.”
“Using what?”
“To get me out.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it's true.”
“No, Dad. What's true is you knew Trina wasn't supposed to be alone with Noah.”
“I was handling it.”
“How?”
Silence.
“Were you outside that door?”
Another silence.
Then Mark said, “You need to stop asking questions you don't understand.”
Sienna almost laughed.
“You're scared.”
“Of course I'm scared. That's my son.”
“No.”
She looked through the windshield.
“You're scared of what happens when people stop accepting your version first.”
Mark's voice dropped.
“If you keep pushing this, don't expect me to save you when Trina decides what she wants to do about the assault.”
The threat worked.
For about three seconds.
Sienna pictured the extinguisher hitting Trina.
The force of it.
The sound.
She knew she could have injured her badly.
She knew a lawyer might someday ask whether another action had been possible.
She would have to live with that uncertainty.
But she also remembered Noah screaming and the jar raised again.
“I didn't ask you to save me.”
She ended the call.
That afternoon she signed the engagement letter with her attorney and paid a retainer from most of her emergency savings.
It hurt.
That mattered.
Doing the right thing did not suddenly make her brave, wealthy, or protected from consequences.
It simply meant she had chosen which consequences she was willing to face.
That night Mark sent one final message.
You are destroying this family for something that lasted seconds.
Sienna read it twice.
Then forwarded it to her attorney.
Because Mark had just written the same thing again.
May you like
Seconds.
And he still had not explained how he knew.
