We wait outside Keisha's room for word from the doctor. It's been over an hour since we got her here and still haven't gotten anything on her mother, "that poor kid." Sonny hums out as we stare at her through the glass, "still no sign of the mother?"
"Fin's working the dealer." Olivia returns, pushing some hair out of her face.
The doctor comes out of the room and I quickly ask, "Dr. Wilder, how's she doing?"
"Not well." She tells us honestly, "starvation, infections. She's so dehydrated her organs are shutting down."
"But she's gonna make it though, right, Doc?" Sonny questions, with hope.
She sighs a just a bit and says, "I wish you'd have found her sooner."
Sonny's head drops but his hand finds mine. I turn my head to hide the tear drop that falls from my eye and turn back to Keisha, finding myself saying a prayer for her. We stay in the hospital with Keisha and Sonny goes to talk to Keith, to get some further information about what is going on. An hour later, Doctor Wilder gives us the news that Keisha passed away. I lose control of my emotions and the tears just start to fall down my face, heartbroken at what happened, "Fin and Amanda are going to start their interview soon, we should be there." Olivia says, lifting her dropped head.
"Yea, yea. We should." I nod, wiping at the tears, willing them to stop falling from my eyes.
We get back to the precinct and go straight to the window to watch them interrogate Manuela. As we get there, we see them showing a picture of Bruno to her. She mumbles out, "Bruno. That's my good boy. I want him back."
"That's not happening." Finn spits back to her, closing the folder.
"Keith Musio's putting him in foster care." Amanda tells her.
"Keith?" She spits out, "I don't know no damn Keith."
"Your DCS caseworker?" Amanda reminds her.
"Oh! Him." She sits up in her chair, barely able to keep her head up, "last time I seen him he was up my ass about feeding my kids chips for dinner."
"Chips?" Amanda fires back, "we found your daughter in a cage. Starving."
She says back, "well, that's Keisha's fault. If she'd shut up, stop crying, maybe she'd earn herself some food." She's so casual about it that it takes everything in me to keep from going in there and slapping her.
"Oh, so you starved her to teach her a lesson?" Amanda pushes her.
She argues, "my mother used to whip me with an electrical cord till I bled. You want I should do that?" Olivia knocks on the window to end the interview there.
"The mother is a piece of work." Amanda says once Fin shuts the door, clearly as agitated with her as I am.
"She's also a murderer." I spit, adding fuel to the fire.
"Keisha didn't make it." Sonny elaborates, as if they couldn't catch on.
"Damn." Fin mutters back, all of us allowing the silence to fill the room.
The weekend goes by slowly. I don't sleep much Friday or Saturday night, and I find myself crawling out of bed at 5 in the morning just to stop from seeing Keisha in a cage when my eyes are closed. I make a quick breakfast, craving pickles and eggs and sit on the couch to binge watch bad television. Sonny comes over around 9 and opens the door in his usual cheerful self, "honey, I'm home!" He mimics the famous lines.
He comes over to the couch and hands me a small box, "what's this?" I ask him, looking at it strangely.
"Just open it!" He urges, sitting down next to me.
I open the box up slowly and see two donuts, one with blue frosting and one with pink, "what's this?" I eye him, flipping open the containers lid and looking at him.
He bites one side of his lip to try and hide his smile, "I was kind of hoping you'd wanna find out the gender of the babies?"
I snort back a laugh, "and you thought bringing me some donuts in gender favorite colors would convince me?"
He shrugs, "no, I just thought you and the babies would be hungry in the morning."
I squint my eyes at him keeping a straight face. He keeps his own poker face on and I quickly lose, smiling back and leaning in to kiss him. As I do, I admit, "hate to break it to you, but I already ate."
I enjoy the look of defeat I put on his face when he heard the first part of my sentence then the look of relief when I said the second, "does that mean we can find out what we're having?"
"Yes Sonny, we can find out what we're having." I promise him and his face lights up.
"I love you." He tells me, leaning me down on he couch to lay on top of me.
I kiss him back, "I love you too."
He goes to try and pull my pants down but I quickly wriggle out of it and stand up, "everything okay?" He asks, sitting up.
I shrug, "I'm just.. Sorry, I just can't stop seeing Keisha in that cage when I close my eyes. How can any parent do that to their kids?" I ask him.
He wraps me into his arms and leans us back against the couch, "some people shouldn't become parents." He simply whispers.
On Monday morning, Amanda and Olivia make time to visit Barba to discuss the Keisha case. The entire team agrees with the idea that child services was neglectful and Keisha could still be alive if they did their job correctly. When they finish talking to him, they call and send Sonny and I back to the offices of child services. "This is a caseworker and a supervisor's worst nightmare." Keith's supervisor says as she walks us to her desk with Keith standing behind her.
"Yeah, the whole city's heartbroken." Sonny says matter of factually to her.
She pokes a bit, "just tell me Manuela is not gonna get away with this."
"Well, this brings us to why we're here." I tell her back, "we're looking to document Manuela's abuse."
Sonny goes on, "now, Keith, you told me that you visited the apartment two weeks ago."
"Yeah, that's right, and I've got that right here." Jeanette jumps in eagerly, opening a folder on her desk, "home visit, July 27th around 2:00 pm." She reads off the notes "Manuela Ozuna is present and sober. Son, Bruno, and daughter, Keisha, are also present, clean, and seem healthy."
"Okay, so Keisha was there, because when we talked you said you weren't sure." Sonny looks to Keith.
He answers back, looking at him then his boss, "no, I said I had to check my notes."
She backs him up, "yes, which we did. And we've gone through these with a fine-tooth comb."
I stop her from going on, "okay, hold on, so you're saying that two weeks ago, that Keisha looked healthy?" I move to go stand behind her, wanting to read the notes myself.
"Yeah, that's what the report says, but you know, these situations with parents on a drug binge, they can deteriorate like that." Jeanette answers, snapping her fingers for emphasis.
A man quickly walks into her office, stopping our conversation, "Jeanette, you should've brought me in." He says to her, then looks to myself and Sonny, "Matt Sheridan, Deputy Commissioner. Let me assure you that our agency is reviewing every moment and action that led up to this tragedy."
"So is our ADA, so we're gonna need Keith's laptop and all of his case files." I respond to him.
"We're here to cooperate, but because of confidentiality issues, we can't hand anything over without a subpoena." He replies.
Sonny and I look at each and he stands up and replies, "we'll be in touch." We leave the office and call Olivia on the way out, "there's a file but it's gotta be faked! There's no way Keisha looked healthy two weeks ago." Olivia says something back to him and he answers her with, "well, their deputy commissioner stopped out interview so we'll need to return with papers." A few more seconds and he says, "yeah, we're on our way."