Chapter 3: The Footage Sarah Said Would Speak For Itself
I waited until Lily was out of the kitchen before touching anything else. The glass stood beneath the same bright window, clear juice catching the morning light, its rim untouched since I had moved it away from the breakfast table. Sarah remained near the counter, composed again, one hand resting beside the sink. Her attention followed me without seeming to.
The phone in my pocket held the photograph I had taken of the glass. The original object sat in a sealed container on the back shelf, beyond reach. I had delayed my trip, sent a brief message to my office, and made no accusation. None of that made the room safer. It only gave me time to see what Sarah believed I would overlook.
Lily had told me Sarah filmed her when I traveled. I needed to know whether those recordings existed, not what I imagined they showed.
Sarah walked toward the private living area. She stopped beside a low cabinet beneath the television and opened its doors. Inside were chargers, a folded tablet stand, and a small black camera no larger than my thumb. Its lens faced outward through a narrow gap in the cabinet.
The device was pointed toward the sofa.
Not the kitchen. Not the breakfast table. The sofa where Lily watched television, played with toys, and sometimes waited for me to call.
Sarah placed the camera in my hand. Her fingers did not tremble. On its side, a small memory card sat beneath a rubber cover. The camera's date display, when I powered it on, showed a time nearly forty minutes behind the clock on the wall.
I photographed the screen before changing anything.
The card contained twenty-three video files. Their names followed a sequence, but the numbers were not continuous. The first file ended in 104. The next began at 107. Two files were absent. The remaining recordings covered several mornings and evenings, though the durations varied sharply. Some lasted less than a minute. Others ran for nearly half an hour.
I copied the directory listing to my phone and opened the first recording.
Lily sat on the sofa in the same casual clothes she had worn that morning. Her shoulders were rounded, and her hands lay in her lap. The camera did not move. There was no audible speech in the file, only the muted household sounds of ventilation and distant plumbing. Lily looked toward the kitchen, then down at her hands. The recording ended.
The next file began with Lily already crying. No beginning explained when the crying started. No person entered the frame. The image held on her face until the file stopped.
Sarah watched me watching it.
I moved to the third file. It showed Lily asleep beneath a blanket. The timestamp jumped backward by six minutes from the previous recording. The fourth began with the blanket pulled away and Lily sitting upright. Again, the space between events was missing.
I paused the playback and examined the metadata. The camera recorded continuously only when motion triggered it, but the gaps were longer than the device's stated standby interval. The missing files were not random interruptions. They sat inside the sequence.
On the cabinet shelf, beneath the camera's charging cable, I found a second card in a plastic adapter. Its label carried a date from one of my previous travel days. I did not insert it. I photographed it where it lay and placed the adapter beside the camera.
Then the tablet on the side table lit up.
A notification appeared without sound. The sender field showed Julian. Beneath it was a video attachment with the same date as the missing files. The preview was only a dark rectangle, too small to identify anything. Before I could open it, the screen went black.
Sarah reached for the tablet.
I covered it with my hand first.
The room stayed quiet. Outside, a delivery truck rolled past the house, its tires hissing over the wet street. Sarah's hand remained suspended between us, and the camera's lens reflected the window like a small, unblinking eye.
I had found the lead I needed. I had not found the truth.
The missing footage, the backward timestamps, and Julian's attachment made the recordings suspect. They did not prove who had removed anything, who had sent the file, or what had happened around the juice. I copied the tablet's notification from memory into my notes, then secured both devices with the camera.
When I finally looked toward the hallway, Lily stood just beyond the doorway, watching me.
May you like
I did not move toward her. I did not look at Sarah.
On the dark tablet screen, the last notification remained reflected faintly in the glass, and Julian's name waited beside a file I could not yet open.
Related Stories
