Chapter 5 - Selene Needed Piper to Look Unstable, Not Seriously Ill
This was where the motive became clearer.
Selene was not trying to poison Piper.
Medical records showed no evidence of dangerous dosing or long-term physical injury.
The suspicion was narrower.
Small amounts.
Enough to make a child unusually sleepy.
Confused.
Irritable afterward.
Why?
Because Selene had been building a story.
For nearly a year, she had told Tristan:
“Piper is getting harder to manage.”
“She has strange mood swings.”
“She says things happened when they didn’t.”
“She wakes up tired.”
“She forgets conversations.”
“She hears things.”
At first Tristan treated the comments as ordinary stepfamily tension.
Then Selene started collecting examples.
A tantrum after an afternoon nap.
Piper claiming a toy had been moved.
Piper insisting Selene promised something Selene denied saying.
Nightmares.
Sleepiness.
Emotional outbursts.
Separately, none meant much.
Together, Selene presented them as evidence Piper might need professional behavioral treatment.
She persuaded Tristan to approve an evaluation.
The therapist did not diagnose anything significant.
Selene pushed for another opinion.
Then another.
Eventually she suggested a highly structured summer program several states away.
Not a psychiatric institution.
Not a locked facility.
A residential behavioral program marketed to wealthy families with “high-conflict children.”
Tristan refused.
“She’s six.”
Selene answered:
“She needs help before this becomes worse.”
Anna heard that conversation.
By then she had already connected Piper’s worst episodes with the missing medication.
And suddenly she understood the purpose.
Selene was not trying to make Piper sick.
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She was trying to make Piper look unreliable.
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