Chapter 8 - The Neighbor's Delivery Truck
The camera belonged to Leon Brooks, a landscape contractor whose pickup was parked across the street while his crew repaired a neighbor's retaining wall.
Leon met Detective Ortiz beside the truck. “I've got a dashcam. It records whenever somebody walks nearby. The investigator said he needed a still for a property dispute.”
“Did you give him the recording?”
“Just a screenshot. He paid my assistant to send it.”
Leon opened his phone. The truck's memory card had stored a two-minute clip. From its angle, the stroller was hidden behind a hedge at first. Patricia entered the picture near the garage. Then the stroller shot into view, Emily ran toward it, and the truck blocked the rest.
“Can you see who pushed?” Ortiz asked.
“No,” Leon said. “But look here.”
He slowed the clip. Patricia walked away from the stroller before it began rolling. She did not appear to chase it. Instead, she turned toward the truck, her face perfectly composed.
Emily watched beside Tessa. The clip showed her running toward danger, not away from the child.
“Will Daniel see this?” she asked.
“Yes,” Ortiz said. “He'll see the original, not a cropped picture.”
That evening, Daniel arrived at the station carrying a small cardboard box. Inside were the bent stroller brake and the blue ribbon he'd removed after the hospital released Sophie.
“An expert should inspect these,” he said. “I should have brought them in sooner.”
Emily looked at him. “You should have believed her sooner.”
“I know.”
Before Ortiz could sign the items into evidence, her phone rang. She listened, her expression growing hard.
“The service technician says the garage camera wasn't disconnected,” she told them. “Somebody wiped its files through the administrator panel.”
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“And who logged in?” Daniel asked.
Ortiz looked at him. “Your account.”
