Chapter 8
The office smelled like leather and cold coffee. I hadn't been inside that room before, not past the doorway, and I didn't want to be there now. But the man at the desk hadn't given me a choice after I'd asked to see it properly.
He was in the same dark gray suit from that night at the window, though he'd taken off the jacket. His black shirt was pressed. He stood behind his desk with his hands flat on the wood like he was holding it down.
The tech was already there when I arrived. Younger guy, maybe late twenties, estate polo, laptop open and cabled into a black box on the credenza. He didn't look at either of us more than he had to.
"I need it preserved," the father said. His voice was low. "Timestamped. No edits. Original file and a copy."
The tech nodded. "It's already locked. System auto-archives for thirty days. I pulled last night's nursery cam, 9 p.m. to midnight. It's got audio."
I kept my hands in my olive coat pockets. My mouth was dry.
"Play it," I said.
He glanced at the father first. The father gave a short nod.
The tech clicked. The monitor on the desk woke up. Split screen, two angles. The main one was the nursery window from inside. I recognized it immediately — the white sill, the pink stuffed rabbit sitting against the twisted iron bars, the dim tungsten lamp light making everything yellow and soft.
Timestamp in the corner: 11:42:07 PM.
For a few seconds nothing happened. Just empty nursery, rabbit on the sill, bars cutting the window into shadows.
Then Rosaline came into frame in her pink pajamas, bow crooked. Camille right behind her in the light blue ones, her ponytail swinging. They didn't run. They walked like they knew exactly where they were going, straight to the window. Rosaline pulled herself up on the sill first. Camille used both hands on the bars.
They waited. That was the worst part. They just waited, faces pressed close to the iron, looking out into the dark where I knew I'd been standing.
The audio crackled.
A man's voice, shocked, from inside the house but off camera: "Rosaline. Camille, who is that?"
On screen, neither girl turned around. Rosaline kept looking out.
Then my own voice, muffled by the mic but clear enough: "Eat slowly, sweethearts."
I watched myself on camera — a blur of olive coat outside the bars — holding that light-colored dented bowl up with both hands. Rosaline reached through first with both hands cupped. Camille did the same. I tilted the bowl and they ate with their fingers, fast, then slower when I told them.
The father next to me didn't move. His jaw was tight. I could hear him breathing.
On the monitor, his voice came again, closer now, tense: "Why are you feeding my children?"
And mine answered, flat and tired and, I realized, completely steady: "Because someone inside isn't."
The tech shifted in his chair. He didn't pause it. He let it roll.
The last line came a few seconds later. The camera had caught the father stepping into frame at last, his dark suit blocking half the nursery light as he moved toward the window. He wasn't shouting. He was speaking right at the bars, right at me, certain he had me.
"The camera's caught you, Hulda."
The timestamp read 11:44:51 PM. The whole thing had been less than three minutes.
The tech hit pause. The image froze on the two girls at the sill, my hands still holding the bowl through the bars, the father's shoulder in frame.
Silence hung in that office.
"That's the complete file," the tech said to the father, carefully neutral. "Unaltered. Audio sync intact. I can export with hash and chain of custody if you need it for your attorney."
"You will," the father said. He didn't look at me. "Make two copies. One stays on the system, one goes to counsel. Log that I requested preservation at 10:15 a.m."
The tech nodded and started typing, exporting the file to a drive. The progress bar crawled.
I finally spoke. "Play the ten minutes before we came into frame."
The father looked at me then, eyes narrowed.
"There's nothing before," he said.
"Then let it play," I said.
The tech glanced between us again and, without being told not to, clicked back. 11:32 PM. The nursery was empty. The crib was made. No tray. No cup. No plate on the low table where the girls played. 11:35. 11:38. The girls came back in with someone — a woman in house staff clothes — who checked the monitor, adjusted the rabbit on the sill, and left. She didn't bring food. She closed the door. At 11:40 the girls went to the window on their own and waited again.
I felt heat rise in my face, but I kept my voice even. "They weren't waiting for a snack. They were waiting because they knew no one would come inside."
The father put his hand to his mouth for a second. When he lowered it, his voice was tighter. "You don't know the routine."
"I know what that shows," I said, and nodded at the frozen frame. "They knew to go to the bars. They knew to reach. That bowl isn't new to them."
The tech ejected the drive and set it on the desk without comment. He stood.
"I'll log it and send the confirmation," he said to the father, and left quickly, closing the door behind him.
We were alone with the monitor still frozen on that image — his children at the window, my hands, his threat caught in his own voice.
He picked up the drive. He didn't offer it to me.
"You got your lawful viewing," he said. "You saw what it proves."
"I did," I said. I was looking at the rabbit on the sill, pink against the iron. "It proves I fed them. And that you saw they needed it. And that you knew the camera was there when you said it."
He stared at the screen a moment longer, then reached over and turned the monitor off. The reflection of us both hung there for a second — my olive coat, his dark shirt — before it went black.
May you like
"Get out of my office, Hulda," he said, but it wasn't a threat anymore. It was flat.
I walked to the door. My hand was shaking on the knob. I knew the footage would sit on his system now, timestamped, locked, unable to be spun either way, and that we both finally knew what it said.
