8 chapters
All chapters tagged with Abby Tedla
A three-level townhouse in North Beach. A nanny. A grandmother. For weeks it feels almost ordinary. Then Tara takes a knife sharpener to Steve's iPhone. Nine marks that look like bullet holes. She photographs a bruise on her thigh and texts her boyfriend. Save this. I've got him.
A wine-and-art event. Two women who walk past the table too many times. Fifteen minutes later, his skin turns red and his body heats up. Tara records the entire episode. He recognizes the feeling from exercise supplements: niacin.
The nanny approaches Steve in the kitchen: 'This will probably get me fired.' She has a brother in the FBI. Her brother told her to tell Steve immediately. The poisoning stops being a suspicion.
A message arrives from Tara. Dramatic, accusatory, the kind of thing she sends often enough that it reads like noise. The phrase about leaving her daughter is a warning. Steve doesn't recognize it yet.
A supervised visit after the emergency order. Steve surrenders California jurisdiction over custody to see his daughter. The grandparents bring Evie to a parking lot in Chappaqua. Maura refuses to let go. Walsh Sr. intervenes. The child calms in her father's arms and cries when she sees her grandmother.
The court appoints a supervisor who promises integrity and transparency. She meets privately with Tara before the first visit, invites her to attend in violation of the court order, dismisses Steve's concerns about being poisoned, and tells him she has a special relationship with the judge. She charges $250 an hour. The judge who appointed her later says on the record that she never wanted Tara at the visits and wanted Steve to die on his own sword, so the court would know.
Steve places his four discoveries side by side: the 2017 lithium result, the Brooklyn episode, the nanny’s account and the Reno bottle. The chapter distinguishes the located laboratory reports and testimony from the bottle analysis and paired results still to be found.
The civil battery case reaches trial in San Francisco Superior Court. A different courtroom. Twelve neutral citizens. The jury hears Steve's account of the nanny's disclosure, Tara's answers, and the documentary evidence.