Chapter 14 - The Hour Nolan Bought
My first impulse was to answer. Anita's first instruction was the opposite. I gave the message to Valdez and didn't reply. An investigator documented the threat and explained that the police would make their own decisions about contacting Nolan.
"What if he posts it?" I asked.
"Then we preserve it too. Don't let a threat make you do something you'll regret."
The hour passed. Nolan uploaded a heavily edited video showing me shouting at Mara and reaching for a camera. The caption called it proof that I had a violent temper.
I watched with Anita, not the children. My own memory supplied the missing scene: Lily had been crying under the studio lights. I'd taken the camera off its stand so Mara would stop recording her. I had raised my voice. I wished I hadn't. But that wasn't the same as attacking anyone.
Renee gave investigators a statement about that day, and the officers had already recovered the original recording equipment. Whether the full files remained usable was a technical question for their examiners, not something I could solve with an angry online post.
At school, Ms. Tate arranged a private entrance for Lily and a quiet place to go if she felt overwhelmed. Her classmates were not told the details. I was grateful for the restraint; so many adults had treated her life like public property.
When I picked her up, Lily showed me a picture she'd drawn of a bird flying away from a camera. "It's not sad," she said quickly. "It's just a bird."
"It can be whatever you want."
She smiled. Then she asked why people on the internet thought I was mean.
"They've seen part of a story without all the facts," I said. "Grown-ups are working to correct it. You don't need to defend me."
I meant it. But that night, Valdez called to say technicians had recovered an earlier unedited recording from the storage equipment.
May you like
She couldn't discuss its contents yet.
"I can tell you this much," she said. "It begins before you walk into the kitchen."
