Chapter 2 - The Recording
The police separated us.
I sat in the library with an ice pack against my forearm while an officer named Maya Brooks reviewed the kitchen footage with the security supervisor.
Ryan tried to come in twice.
Both times Maya stopped him.
"Your wife asked for space."
"I'm her husband."
"That is not permission."
I heard the words through the door.
For the first time all night, I breathed easier.
Twenty minutes later Maya entered carrying a tablet.
"Mrs. Mercer, I need you to confirm something."
I nodded.
The video started five minutes before Diane picked up the broom.
She was already angry.
"Sign the papers," she told me.
I said no.
She blocked the kitchen exit.
Ryan came in.
I looked at him and said, "Tell her to leave."
He answered, "Just sign and this ends."
Then Diane grabbed the metal handle.
The rest matched my memory exactly.
Maya paused the screen.
"What papers?"
Ryan had told the police the fight was over a family argument.
It wasn't.
For three weeks he and Diane had pressured me to sign a refinance package for the house.
The house my mother had left me.
Not Ryan.
Me.
I had refused because the numbers did not make sense.
The proposed loan was for $480,000.
Ryan said it was for his business expansion.
But his company had already received a bank line of credit six months earlier.
Maya asked where the papers were.
I pointed toward the kitchen.
"On the island."
They were gone.
Ryan claimed he had never seen them.
Diane claimed I imagined them.
Then the security supervisor said something that made Ryan stop talking.
"There's more footage."
"From tonight?" Maya asked.
"No. From the last thirty days."
May you like
Ryan's face drained.
The camera above the kitchen door had been recording every argument about that house.
