Chapter 16 - JUDITH’S CHOICEJudith asked to speak with Vega again.
She requested me too.
We met in a quiet interview room.
She looked smaller than before.
“I saw him.”
“Who?”
“Shane.”
“When?”
“Monday night.”
The night she heard something under the floor.
She called Shane.
He came over.
Went to basement.
Judith followed partway.
“I saw him carrying a bottle.”
“Water?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“He went behind the furnace.”
Toward the old access panel.
“What did you think?”
She began crying.
“I knew.”
Silence.
Not everything.
Enough.
“Knew what?”
“That Ben was there.”
My stomach dropped.
“Did you see him?”
“No.”
“Hear him?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“Mom.”
One word.
Judith covered her face.
“What did Shane tell you?”
“He said Ben had hit his head and was acting crazy. He said if we called police, Ben would lose Lila because he’d tried to kill himself.”
A lie built from the staged suicide.
Shane told her Ben wanted to remain hidden until he was “clearheaded.”
“Did you believe him?”
Judith sobbed.
“I wanted to.”
That was the most honest answer she gave.
“Why didn’t you call us?”
“He said Ben would come out in the morning.”
Morning came.
Ben did not.
Judith asked again.
Shane said Ben refused.
By Wednesday, Lila would not stop talking about Daddy in the floor.
Judith finally called police.
Not because she suddenly became certain.
Because guilt overcame obedience.
Could Judith face charges?
Possibly.
Failure to seek aid after knowing a seriously injured person was confined raised legal questions.
But coercion, age, manipulation, and exactly what she understood mattered.
The district attorney would decide later.
For me, the harder fact was simpler.
She heard her son call:
May you like
Mom.
And waited two more days.
