Chapter 11 - THE BAIT
Once we understood the dinner had been planned, everything looked different.
Michael’s phone buzzing under the table.
Patricia’s comments.
The way everyone had been seated.
Even the wineglass.
Rachel subpoenaed the family’s security system.
Patricia’s attorney fought it.
That made us want the footage more.
When the judge ordered preservation, we learned the cameras had been disabled twenty minutes before dinner and reactivated nine minutes after police left.
“Convenient,” Rachel said.
But Patricia had forgotten about the doorbell camera across the street.
A neighbor’s system captured Leonard arriving before dinner carrying a small hard case.
Thirty minutes later, he left without it.
Police searched Patricia’s house.
They found the case in a hall closet.
Inside was a compact audio recorder and two wireless microphones.
One had been taped beneath my chair.
Patricia had intended to record me.
Jenna sat beside me when detectives explained it.
“She wanted Emma to scream,” she said.
The detective nodded. “Looks that way.”
Rachel added, “Then they’d edit it like the other recordings.”
A cold realization moved through me.
“If Michael hadn’t thrown the glass…”
“They might have had exactly what they wanted,” Rachel said.
My husband’s violence had accidentally exposed the larger trap.
Then the detective opened the recorder’s memory card.
Most files were blank tests.
One was not.
It had been recorded three days before dinner.
Patricia’s voice said, “If she doesn’t react enough, provoke her.”
Michael answered, “And if she calls the police?”
Patricia laughed.
“Even better.”
Then a third voice spoke.
“Just make sure she never learns about the life insurance.”
May you like
I knew that voice.
It belonged to Robert.
