Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO SENT THE VIDEO

Detective Ava Brooks came to the hospital before midnight.

She took the skillet into evidence.

She took my statement.

Then she watched the video.

"Who sent this?"

"I don't know."

"Any cameras in your kitchen?"

"Not that I knew about."

Michael looked away.

I caught it.

"You knew?"

"It's an old nanny cam."

"Why was it active?"

"My dad installed it years ago."

"Who has access?"

Michael closed his eyes.

"Mom."

Detective Brooks leaned forward.

"Anyone else?"

"Vanessa. Maybe our house manager."

Vanessa was Michael's younger sister.

Thirty years old. Perfect hair. Perfect clothes. No job she kept longer than four months.

She had moved into our guest room "temporarily" three weeks earlier.

Now I understood why.

Brooks asked, "Who benefits if your wife loses custody?"

Michael said nothing.

I answered.

"Margaret."

Then my phone buzzed again.

Unknown number.

THIS ISN'T THE FIRST TIME.

A second video arrived.

Emma was in the nursery.

Margaret stood beside the crib.

I could hear her talking to someone on speakerphone.

"Rachel travels too much. We need a pattern. A fall. A missed meal. Something a judge will believe."

A man's voice answered.

"Do not leave bruises."

Michael stood so fast his chair hit the wall.

"I know that voice."

I stared at him.

"Who?"

He looked sick.

"Our family attorney. Charles Vane."

Brooks paused the video.

"Your attorney is discussing manufacturing child neglect?"

Michael covered his face.

I felt nothing for him.

Not yet.

"How long have you known about this trust?"

"All my life."

"How long have you known your mother wanted control?"

He looked at me.

"Not like this."

That answer was not good enough.

Brooks sent the videos to digital forensics.

Then she asked one last question.

"Mrs. Patterson, has anyone recently asked you to sign documents involving your daughter?"

I remembered an envelope Margaret had left on my desk two days earlier.

Routine preschool paperwork, she had said.

I never opened it.

Michael went still.

"What?"

I looked at him.

"The envelope is still at home."

Brooks stood.

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"Nobody touches it until we get there."

Then Michael whispered, "Rachel... I signed mine."