Chapter 11 - What She Expected Me to Do
The plan depended on one thing Linda understood perfectly.
A mother would panic.
She expected me to run into that bathroom, grab Lily, touch everything, move everything, scream, cry, and destroy the clean order of the scene.
Then police would arrive because Linda had already called them.
From Ryan’s phone.
Reporting me.
“She wanted my fingerprints everywhere,” I said.
Harper nodded. “And hers where they belonged because she was supposedly helping.”
Ryan paced the interview room.
“This is insane.”
“No,” Harper said. “It’s organized.”
That word was worse.
Organized.
Linda had rehearsed my breakdown.
But something in her plan had failed.
I arrived earlier than she expected.
The dryer cycle had ended three minutes sooner because I had only washed Lily’s clothes.
Those three minutes may have saved my daughter.
Harper told us Linda had probably fled once she realized the scene had collapsed.
Then Caleb, the forensic technician, walked in holding a laptop.
“We recovered part of the eleven-minute video.”
I stopped breathing.
“From where?” Ryan asked.
“Temporary cache in the camera itself. It’s incomplete. No audio.”
Harper looked at me. “You don’t have to watch.”
“Yes, I do.”
The video showed Linda carrying Lily into the bathroom.
She looked down the hallway first.
Then she closed the door.
Seven minutes were corrupted.
The picture returned thirty-eight seconds before I entered.
Linda stood at the toilet.
Her shoulders were tense.
She lifted her head toward the door as if listening for me.
Then she reached into her pocket.
She took out Ryan’s phone.
The screen lit her face.
She placed the call.
Harper froze the image.
Ryan covered his mouth.
Caleb zoomed in.
Something else was visible beside the sink.
A small orange prescription bottle.
I recognized it immediately.
“That’s not mine.”
Ryan leaned closer.
His face changed.
May you like
“No,” he whispered.
“It was my father’s.”
