Just before we lit Emma's seventh birthday candles, my daughter collapsed.

They let me sit across from Mark in an interview room two days later.

His lawyer had advised against it.

Mark had agreed anyway.

I think he believed he could still talk his way back to me.

Even then.

Even there.

He looked smaller than I remembered.

Not thinner — just smaller.

Like the careful expression had been the thing holding him upright, and without it, something had gone slack.

"You don't have to be here," he said.

"I know."

"Sarah." He leaned forward.

"What happened with Emma was not supposed to happen that way.

I need you to understand that."

"I understand that you planned it," I said.

"I understand that you gave Rachel the vial and the dosage instructions and told her to put it in Emma's drink."

"The dosage was safe.

It should have been safe."

"She stopped breathing, Mark."

He flinched.

The first real thing I'd seen from him in days.

"I know," he said quietly.

"I know she did.

I didn't know that until after.

Rachel didn't measure it right."

"You handed a vial of a concentrated pharmaceutical sedative to my sister at a children's birthday party and told her to dose our seven-year-old daughter," I said.

"And you're telling me the problem was the measurement."

He pressed his mouth shut.

"How long has Marsh owned you?" I asked.

A pause.

"Fourteen months."

"What did he promise you?"

"Debt clearance.

Full clearance.

In exchange for compound access and a viable sample." He looked at the table.

"I thought the sample would be something controlled.

A lab setting.

I didn't know he wanted a live demonstration."

"But you gave him one anyway."

"I didn't have a choice.

He made that very clear."

"You had a choice," I said.

"You could have come to me.

You could have gone to the police.

You could have done a hundred things before you handed a vial to Rachel and put it in our daughter's birthday party."

He looked up.

"And said what?

That I'd borrowed nearly half a million dollars from a man who doesn't accept late payments?

That I'd been selling controlled substances out of my lab for six months?

You would have left."

"Yes," I said.

"I would have."

He nodded slowly.

Like he'd known that and had been afraid of it for fourteen months and had chosen everything else instead.

"Marsh's attorney is already building a case that places everything on you and Rachel," I said.

"He's going to argue that Marsh was a legitimate creditor who had no knowledge of how the debt was being serviced."

Mark's jaw tightened.

"I know."

"So you need to decide whether you're going to let that happen."

He looked at me carefully.

The old careful look, but different now.

Smaller.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I want a full statement.

Every conversation with Marsh.

Every instruction he gave you.

Every delivery, every payment, every threat.

I want his name attached to every decision he made." I folded my hands on the table.

"Your lawyer can negotiate the terms.

But if Marsh walks away from this because you stayed quiet, I will spend the rest of my life making sure every person who should have known about him does."

The room was very quiet.

Mark looked at his hands.

"He told me to use Emma," he said finally.

"Specifically.

He said a child's reaction would be more convincing to the buyer than an adult volunteer.

He said it needed to look accidental." He paused.

"I told him no three times.

The fourth time, he told me what would happen to Emma if I kept saying no."

My stomach turned over.

"Say that to Detective Flores," I said.

"Say exactly that."

He nodded.