Chapter 9 - The Man Who Was Supposed to Be There
Mason Reed met Detective Park at the police station. I wasn't allowed in the interview, but Park later told us enough to make my knees weak.
Margaret had called Mason two weeks earlier to arrange a short video about pool safety. She wanted him to stand near the side entrance with a camera and wait for her signal. He thought the demonstration would involve a child in proper flotation gear, with adults within arm's reach.
"Did he know she removed the panels?" I asked.
"He says absolutely not. We have no evidence yet that he did."
On the afternoon of the accident, Margaret had texted him not to enter until she waved. Mason reached the locked side gate shortly after three, saw Evie in the water, and demanded Margaret bring her out. When she failed to respond, he called 911. He never recorded a frame.
"She wanted footage of herself saving Evie," Daniel said.
"That's one possibility," Park answered. "We're not assigning motives before we have the facts."
But I'd lived under Margaret's rules long enough to recognize the shape of it. She had been building a story where I was the careless mother and she was the only adult Evie could trust. The near-drowning would have been her final scene.
Daniel drove us back to the hospital without speaking. At a red light, he said, "When I was little, my sister almost drowned."
I turned toward him. "You never told me you had a sister."
"You know I do. Abby. We don't talk."
I'd heard the name once or twice, always followed by Margaret's judgment: difficult, unstable, ungrateful.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Mom pulled her out, supposedly. Everybody praised her. Abby says that's not what happened."
"How old was Abby?"
"Seven."
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Daniel pulled into a parking space, shut off the engine, and looked at me with the face of a man watching his childhood split open.
"Nora, Abby said Mom watched her go under before she helped."
