Chapter 2 - FORTY-SEVEN MINUTES
The officer did not let Daniel watch the whole video that night.
He only showed him enough to identify the people in it.
That was enough.
For forty-seven minutes, Claire had ordered Lily to stay on the floor while Margaret corrected the angle of the phone.
At one point, Lily asked for water.
Claire told her she could have some when she “stopped acting.”
Daniel felt sick.
“This happened in my house.”
Officer Ramos looked at him carefully.
“Yes.”
“And I didn’t know.”
Lily was asleep against his chest by then.
Ramos lowered his voice.
“Right now, she needs you to believe her without making her repeat everything tonight.”
Daniel nodded.
Claire and Margaret were taken in for questioning.
A temporary protection order was issued before midnight.
Daniel carried Lily upstairs.
He expected her to relax once they were alone.
Instead, she checked the hallway twice.
“Is Grandma coming back?”
“No.”
“Mommy?”
“Not tonight.”
Lily’s shoulders dropped.
Daniel sat beside her bed.
“Sweetheart, I need to ask one thing.”
She looked terrified.
He hated himself for even asking.
“Has Mommy hurt you before?”
Lily stared at her blanket.
“She says it isn’t hurting if it doesn’t leave a mark.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
The words sounded practiced.
Like something she had been told many times.
The next morning, he opened the home security app.
The kitchen camera showed no recordings from the last three months.
Neither did the hallway camera.
That made no sense.
Daniel paid for automatic cloud storage.
He called the security company.
The technician checked the account.
“Mr. Reed, these clips weren’t lost.”
Daniel’s grip tightened around the phone.
“What do you mean?”
“They were manually deleted.”
“By who?”
May you like
The technician paused.
“By an administrator logged in from inside your house.”
