Detective Miller looked at me for three long seconds without touching the papers on his desk.

“Did Christopher Winslow threaten you directly with physical force?”

“He told me we’d be out on the curb before sunrise if my baby cried,” I said.

“And last night he had two estate guards lock us outside the iron gate in the rain.”

Pendelton leaned across the oak table and laid three printed photos on top of the open folder.

They showed the unlabeled white drug box, the serial number printed on the glass ampoule, and the paternity document Brandon had signed in the diner alley.