My fingers flew across the console, cold and fast. I punched in the address: 414 Crowridge Lane. The system hummed, confirming the dispatch to my own house.
“Units 3 and 7, respond Code 3 to a reported 459 in progress at 414 Crowridge Lane,” I said into the headset, my voice tight. “Ten-year-old male child inside. Suspect description unknown.”
The familiar cadence of the dispatch room, a constant low thrum of static and distant voices, seemed to mock the chaos surging through me. It was all so routine, yet nothing felt real.
Eleanor Garrick, my mother-in-law, stood across the room. A thin smile played on her lips. She held a stack of official-looking papers, bound in a heavy folder.
Her eyes, usually cold, gleamed with something like triumph.
“Such a brave little dispatcher,” she purred, her voice carrying an impossible calm over the radio chatter.
She stepped closer, placing the folder on the nearest console. The clack of its heavy binding against the plastic was unnervingly loud.
“But bravery won’t change the law, Lily.”
My eyes scanned the top document. It was a court order, stamped and signed, declaring me an unfit guardian for Toby. Negligent. Abandoning my duties.
A wave of nausea hit me.
“This is impossible,” I whispered, my voice barely audible above the incoming calls that weren’t mine to take. “I just sent officers there.”
Eleanor leaned in, her perfume, a cloying scent of lilies and something metallic, filling my nostrils.
“They’ll find him alone, won’t they?” she said, her voice dropping. “Just like I planned. A minor, unsupervised, while his legally appointed guardian is… elsewhere.”
She tapped the document with a perfectly manicured nail. The words ‘Temporary Guardianship’ and ‘Eleanor Garrick’ stared back at me in stark black ink.
“The officers will escort Toby directly to child services, as mandated by this injunction.”
My jaw clenched. She had orchestrated this. The phantom 911 call, the legal ambush, all of it. To make me choose between my job and Toby, knowing I’d fail both in her eyes.
“You can’t do this,” I said, trying to steady my breath. My hands balled into fists under the console.
Eleanor merely arched an eyebrow, her gaze drifting to the dispatch monitor, where the blue lights representing Units 3 and 7 crawled slowly toward Crowridge Lane. The progress bar moved with agonizing slowness.
“Oh, but I can,” she replied, a silkiness in her tone that promised absolute cruelty. “And I have. Unless, of course, you wish to contest my claim of gross negligence.”
She gestured to the pile of documents. They included property liens, financial statements, and a detailed list of alleged failures in my care for Toby. This wasn’t just about the house anymore. This was about severing me from my brother entirely.
“The courts tend to favor stability, dear. And I am nothing if not stable.”
The emergency lights of Units 3 and 7 flickered closer on the digital map, still several minutes away. Time felt like wet sand slipping through my grasp.
Eleanor gave another small, satisfied smile. “You chose to protect the property, not the child. A fatal miscalculation, wouldn’t you say?”
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