“Miss Anders? I’m Detective Hurt, and this is officer Marks. Are you up to giving us your statement now?”
“Yes, I’m good,” she answers as I help her into a sitting position.
Detective Hurt looks at me. I pull my chair closer and wrap my hand around Delphi’s. “I already gave my statement to the other officers. I won’t say anything, but I’m not leaving her.”
For a second, I think he’ll argue with me, but in the end, he relents.
“Can you tell us what happened from the beginning, Miss Anders?”
She squeezes my hand as she looks over at him. “You know about Theo?”
The detective nods. “He’s Mrs. Milton’s son, correct? And your former foster child?”
“Current foster child. He’s back with us for now.” She blows out a shaky breath. “Diane Milton did a stint in rehab, which resulted in a judge deeming her a fit mother, and Theo was returned home. Josh Milton, Theo’s stepfather, was ordered to stay away from Theo, and a protection order was put in place.”
“And this made you mad? Theo being returned to his mom.”
“Mad, sad, worried,” she admits. “Ultimately, though, it wasn’t about me. It was about Theo. And as much as it hurt to watch him leave, I wanted him to have the mother he deserved. If getting away from Josh and getting clean meant she could be that, then I was happy for him.”
“You didn’t try to contest the judge’s ruling?”
“No. I just told Theo I’d be there no matter what and that he was always welcome to visit whenever he wanted.”
He makes a note as I watch Delphi’s face.
“Why were you at the Milton residence today?”
“I was in my office doing paperwork when I got a text from Theo’s phone.”
“What did it say?”
She looks at me. “Can you pass me my bag?”
I grab her bag from the cabinet next to the bed and hand it to her. She pulls out her phone and opens it up, flipping through until she finds what she wants and turns it around for them to see.
I look at her in question, but she shrugs.
“So the message was from Diane, not Theo,” the detective notes.
“Yes.”
“And you went over there?” he asks incredulously. I admit I’m kind of feeling the same fucking way.
“She wanted to build a relationship with me for the sake of her son, and I wanted that too. How amazing would that have been for Theo?”
“Still, you must have had reservations about going over there?” the officer says.
“Why? The judge and CPS said the place was safe, that Theo was safe, so I trusted them to have done their jobs. I had no reason to think anything like this would happen. How could I?”
Except that Delphi doesn’t just trust anyone, and the fact that she didn’t call me first is bizarre.
“I went over and knocked on the door. It seems so stupid now, I know.”
“What happened next?”
“Diane opened the door and ushered me in. I didn’t know anything was off until I saw Josh on the sofa staring at me. I tried to take a step back, but Diane stepped up behind me. She told me if I made a sound, she’d shoot me, and dug something into my back. I assumed it was a gun. Josh started yelling and cursing, asking what the fuck I was doing there.”
“So she didn’t lure you there for him?”
