Chapter 2
Morning arrived without making the house feel any safer.
The first gray light slipped through the living-room curtains. My sister had made coffee, but neither of us had touched it. Emma was still asleep on the couch, curled on her side with Bunny tucked beneath her chin. I sat close enough to hear her breathing.
When the knock came, I flinched.
My sister glanced toward the front door.
“That must be the investigator.”
I stood, then looked down at Emma. She hadn’t stirred.
“Could you stay with her?”
“Of course.”
I opened the door only after checking the peephole. The investigator introduced themself, showed identification, and asked to come in. I led them to the dining table, where I’d set out my phone and the notes I’d made about the recordings.
“I haven’t changed anything,” I said. “The original clips are still in the app. I saved copies separately and wrote down the dates and times.”
“That’s helpful,” the investigator said. “We’ll start with the earliest available clip. I’ll ask you to open it in the original system so we can confirm what we’re viewing.”
My hands felt too large for the phone. I opened the camera app and found the date from the message. The tiny thumbnail showed an empty stretch of hallway.
Before I tapped it, I looked over my shoulder.
My sister sat beside Emma, awake now but quiet. Bunny’s ears were folded under Emma’s hand. She looked small beneath the blanket, and for a moment I wanted to close the app, hide the phone, and pretend we could solve everything simply by staying close to her.
But staying close wasn’t the same as understanding what had happened.
I pressed play.
The hallway appeared on the screen. The camera’s view began at the stairs and ended before the laundry-room doorway, leaving part of the hall beyond its reach. For several seconds, nothing moved.
Then Vanessa came into view.
I leaned toward the screen. The image was ordinary, grainy, and silent except for the faint hum the camera picked up from the house. Vanessa moved across the hall. A moment later, Emma appeared behind her.
I stopped breathing.
The investigator didn’t look at me. They watched the clip, one hand resting beside their notebook.
Vanessa reached back and took Emma’s hand. From the camera’s angle, I couldn’t tell whether she held it gently or tightly. Emma followed, her face turned away. They moved toward the laundry room, and then they were gone from view.
The hallway remained empty.
I stared at the black edge where they had disappeared.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“For this clip, that’s what the camera captured.”
“But it shows her taking Emma in there.”
“It shows them walking out of the camera’s view together,” the investigator said carefully. “It doesn’t show what happened after that.”
I nodded, but the distinction felt almost unbearable. I wanted the screen to reveal the room, the bolt, the marks on the door—everything I hadn’t seen when it mattered. Instead, it showed only the empty space where I should have been.
The investigator asked me to note the clip’s date and time. I read them aloud while they wrote them down. Then we watched the recording again, this time without pausing.
“What’s the next clip?” they asked.
I found one from another date. Vanessa and Emma appeared again, crossing the same portion of hallway. This time, Emma held Bunny. Vanessa stopped just before the edge of the camera’s view, and Emma’s small body turned partly away from her.
The audio was clearer than the picture.
“Keep moving,” Vanessa said.
The words were quiet. Not shouted. Not enough, by themselves, to explain the whole story.
Emma took a step.
Then both of them disappeared.
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“Can you hear anything after they’re out of frame?”
I raised the volume. We listened through the rest of the clip. There was the thud of a door—or something that sounded like one. Then, faintly, a child’s voice. I couldn’t make out words. I leaned closer as if that could turn the sound into certainty.
The investigator replayed that part once.
“Do you know what she’s saying?” they asked.
“No.”
“Then don’t guess.”
The instruction landed harder than it should have. I’d spent the night wanting every scrap of evidence to tell me exactly what happened, and I could feel my mind trying to fill in the missing parts.
I set the phone down.
“I know what Emma told me.”
“I understand. Her account matters. The recordings may help establish what happened in the hallway, but they don’t show the inside of that room. We need to keep those things distinct.”
I looked at the frozen image on the screen. Vanessa’s hand was beside Emma’s shoulder. Emma’s face was turned away.
For months, I had heard my daughter cry and let somebody else explain the sound.
“How many clips should we review?” I asked.
“We’ll focus on the ones that are relevant, starting with the earliest and working through the dates we’ve identified. We don’t need to watch every recording right now.”
I glanced at the list I’d made. There were more dates than I wanted to see.
“Do you want me to send them to anyone?”
“Not to friends or family, and not online. Don’t edit them or make another version to circulate. Keep the originals available, and let us document what’s there.”
My face grew hot. I hadn’t planned to share anything. But part of me had imagined putting the footage in front of everyone who had ever told me Emma was merely grieving. I wanted them to feel the shock I felt.
The investigator seemed to read something in my expression.
“I know you want people to understand,” they said. “For now, keep the recordings between the people who need to review them. And please don’t question Emma repeatedly about specific details or try to help her remember what you think the clips show.”
“I haven’t been asking her.”
“Keep it that way. If she brings something up, listen and reassure her. Don’t suggest words or ask her to confirm what you’ve seen.”
I nodded. I could do that. I had to.
From the living room, I heard Bunny’s soft fabric brush against the couch. Emma sat up, blinking at the morning. My sister spoke to her quietly. I rose halfway from the table, but the investigator lifted a hand—not to stop me, just to give me a moment to decide.
I went to Emma.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
She looked from me to the dining room. The investigator stayed where they were.
“Are they here about the camera?”
“Yes. They’re helping us understand what it recorded.”
“Are they going to ask me things?”
“Not right now. You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to.”
Emma rubbed one eye. Her other hand held Bunny against her chest.
“Can I have breakfast?”
“Absolutely.”
She looked at me, searching my face, then nodded. I walked with her to the kitchen. My sister poured cereal while I stayed beside Emma, letting her choose the bowl and the spoon. The ordinary little choices felt important. I couldn’t give her back the months when she had been afraid. I could give her this morning, without questions she wasn’t ready for.
After breakfast, Emma asked for a cartoon. My sister settled on the couch with her, leaving the living-room door open. I returned to the table.
The investigator had marked the times we’d reviewed. Together, we opened two more clips. In one, Vanessa appeared in the hall without Emma, then went out of frame. A few minutes later, she returned with Emma. In another, Emma followed several steps behind her, clutching Bunny’s ear.
Each clip ended with the same blank stretch of hallway.
No camera inside the laundry room. No view of the exterior bolt. No proof of what was said after the door closed.
Still, the repeated journeys changed the way I saw the house. I had thought of the camera as a device I’d installed for packages and unexpected visitors. Now its limited view seemed like a cruel joke: it had recorded the path toward the place Emma feared, but not the place itself.
The investigator asked me to find the next date on the list.
I searched through the timeline. As I scrolled, the label for one recording caught my eye. It was from a day I remembered coming home late. I tapped it.
Vanessa entered the hallway alone. She glanced toward the stairs, then paused beneath the camera. Her head turned upward.
I leaned closer to the screen.
The image wasn’t sharp enough to tell exactly where she was looking. Then her face angled toward the lens. For a second, she seemed to stare directly into it.
My mouth went dry.
May you like
She stayed there, looking up.
Then, very slowly, she turned away.
