Confirming the Evidence
The following morning I knew I had to do something before I lost my mind entirely.
I replayed Miss Greenwood’s footage and cropped the label on the smoothie bottle. I found the café. I pulled up a photo of Lauren from her company website.
Then I drove there.
A young cashier recognized Lauren immediately.
“She comes in a lot,” he said casually. “Usually with that guy from the construction company.”
Mark.
Then the cashier added one more thing.
“That smoothie has yogurt and whole milk in it. We label it because of allergies.”
There it was. The final piece.
Maybe Lauren hadn’t intentionally hurt Ava. But Mark knew. And instead of checking the drink before handing it to our daughter, he had been too consumed with keeping two separate lives from colliding.
