Chapter 5: What the Camera Remembered
Detective Harris reached the storage facility after Brandon had gone.
The lock hung open, and the metal box had disappeared.
“He knew we had the key,” I said when Harris visited that evening.
Leah lowered her eyes.
“He must have seen the empty hook beside his desk.”
My mother faced her.
“Did you tell anyone you were coming here?”
“No.
But my car was parked outside.”
Detective Harris placed three photographs on my tray.
“Brandon removed the box, but he left these behind.”
The first showed loan forms bearing my name.
The second showed my mother’s deed.
The third showed a plastic bag containing my passport and Social Security card.
“I kept those documents in our bedroom,” I said.
“Brandon told me the bank needed identity copies,” Leah whispered.
“I scanned them.”
“You saw my passport and still believed I was his cousin?”
“He said the woman in the photograph was Samantha Reed.” Leah’s voice cracked.
“I wanted his story to be true.”
My mother touched my arm.
“She came here when she could have disappeared.”
I looked at Leah.
“Then stay and help finish this.”
“I will.”
The next morning, Detective Harris arranged a recorded interview at the hospital.
Evelyn entered with her attorney and sat across from my wheelchair.
She stared at my immobilized leg.
“You’ve always exaggerated.”
“You left me on the floor.”
“You insulted me in my own home.”
“I reduced the salt in your dinner.”
“You called me sick.”
“Your doctor called you sick, Evelyn.
I tried to protect you.”
Her attorney touched her sleeve, but she pulled away.
“You wanted my house,” Evelyn said.
“That’s why you recorded us.”
“You took every paycheck I earned.”
“That money paid for your food.”
“Brandon transferred more than forty thousand dollars from my account.”
Evelyn folded her arms.
“Ask your husband.
A wife should know what she signs.”
Detective Harris placed the storage photographs between us.
“Did Samantha sign these loan forms?”
Evelyn’s mouth tightened.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Did you order Walter to remove a box from the basement?”
“No.”
Harris pressed play on the recovered phone file.
Evelyn’s recorded voice filled the room.
“She got out through the window!”
Then Brandon answered.
“Walter, find her phone.
Mom, get the loan file downstairs.
If she talks, we say she fell.”
Walter’s voice followed.
“There’s a camera in the kitchen.”
A chair crashed in the recording.
“Then erase it,” Brandon said.
Evelyn stood so fast that her attorney’s folder fell.
“That recording is fake.”
I held her gaze.
“You knew I hadn’t fallen.”
“You were trying to tear my family apart.”
“No, Evelyn.
I was trying to stay alive.”
Her attorney pulled her toward the door.
She looked back at me, lips trembling with rage.
“Brandon will prove you planned all of this.”
When she was gone, Harris stopped the recording.
“The kitchen camera may be more important than the phone.”
“Walter said he erased it,” my mother replied.
Leah reached into her handbag.
“Maybe he erased the wrong copy.”
She placed a receipt on the table.
Brandon’s company had purchased two identical memory drives three months earlier.
“He installed one in the kitchen recorder,” Leah said.
“The other was billed to a second address.”
“Whose address?” I asked.
She turned the receipt over.
MRS.
ELEANOR HIGGINS.
I stared at the name.
“Why would Brandon send a memory drive to the woman next door?”
Detective Harris was already dialing.
Mrs.
Higgins answered on the third ring.
“I was wondering when you’d ask about that little black box,” she said.
“Walter gave it to me the night Samantha escaped.”
Harris put the call on speaker.
“Why would Walter trust you?”
“He didn’t.
He hid it in my recycling bin.”
May you like
A drawer opened on her end of the line.
“And Detective,” she added, “the box is still recording.”
