Chapter 4 - What Was Behind the Door
By sunrise, Tommy's fever had begun to ease. The doctor said he was responding to treatment, though they wanted to watch him carefully. Lily had eaten half a banana and fallen asleep with her fingers hooked through the hem of my shirt.
My sister, Tessa, drove in from Durham and sat with the children while I returned to the house with Detective Valdez and another officer. I was relieved not to go alone. The quiet there had become its own kind of threat.
The refrigerator held spoiled milk and a half-open jar of pickles. A dish towel lay beneath an unplugged night-light. The pantry had a padlock on its upper cabinet, the one where we normally kept snacks. Valdez photographed it without comment.
The storage-room key hung inside Mara's jewelry box, taped under the tray. When the door opened, I expected boxes of winter clothes.
Instead, there were two white studio lights, a folding backdrop printed with our kitchen window, and a small camera on a tripod. Toy blocks stood on taped marks on the floor. Along one wall were plastic bins labeled FIRST TAKE, RETAKES, and PROPS.
A small wooden chair faced a camera. It was Lily's chair from the playroom.
Valdez asked the officer to document everything before anyone moved it. On a clipboard, a page carried instructions in Mara's handwriting: "Lily: say Dad promised but didn't come. Tommy: hold bear, look tired. Keep snack out of frame."
I gripped the doorframe until the pain steadied me. "They made the children perform?"
"This is evidence," Valdez said. "We still need to establish who made it and when."
A box of mailed thank-you notes lay under the chair, some bearing the names of strangers who believed they were helping sick children. The address labels came from a company called Quiet Harbor Media.
On the desk stood a framed photograph of Mara and a man I didn't recognize. He wore a navy baseball cap and held an award for a community media project.
I turned the frame over. Written across the back were two names: Mara Holt and Nolan Cress.
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Underneath was a schedule for the following afternoon.
"Friday, 4:00 p.m.," I read. "Final family interview. Evan comes home. Capture his reaction."
