Chương 6
“He told you that?”
“Constantly.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because families survive by not repeating everything people say in their kitchens.”
“That worked out beautifully.”
Vanessa winced.
Rachel stood.
She had come for an answer.
She had gotten several, none of them large enough to contain what happened to Abby.
At the door Vanessa said, “Rachel.”
Rachel stopped.
“I didn’t know he was at your house that night.”
Rachel did not turn.
“But you knew enough to lie.”
“Yes.”
Rachel opened the door.
Outside, the basketball rolled from the neighbor’s driveway and stopped near her foot.
A boy called, “Sorry!”
Rachel kicked it back gently.
“Nice pass,” the boy said.
She got into her car and cried before starting the engine.
The police found David two days later.
He had not been hiding particularly well.
He was staying at a motel thirty miles away under his own name.
That detail offended Rachel more than if he had disappeared.
It suggested confidence.
Or stupidity.
Ortiz did not tell Rachel whether David was arrested. She said he had agreed to come in with an attorney and answer limited questions.
“Limited,” Rachel repeated.
“That’s his right.”
“I know.”
Rachel was sitting at her kitchen table again.
It was becoming the center of her shrinking world.
“What did he say?”
“I can’t give you details from an active investigation.”
“Did he admit he was at my house?”
“I can tell you he has not admitted responsibility for Abby’s death.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I know.”
Rachel rubbed her forehead.
Ortiz said, “We confirmed he traveled from Hawaii to the mainland Tuesday.”
Rachel’s hand stopped.
“How?”
“I’m not going to walk you through everything.”
“But you confirmed it.”
“Yes.”
“Was he here?”
“We have evidence consistent with him being here.”
Rachel exhaled.
It should have felt like victory.
It did not.
“What about the coins?”
“We’re working on it.”
Rachel stared at Abby’s water bottle.
“Do you think he killed her?”
Ortiz was quiet.
“Rachel.”
“I need you to answer me like a person for five seconds.”
“I am answering you like a person.”
“No. You’re answering me like a detective.”
“That’s the only way I’m useful to you right now.”
Rachel hated that answer.
Later she would be grateful for it.
At the time she hung up without saying goodbye.
Three days passed.
Rachel slept four hours total.
She returned casseroles to people in the wrong dishes.
She found herself standing in the cereal aisle of a grocery store at ten at night because she had forgotten why she went there.
A woman recognized her from church and hugged her without asking.
Rachel let her.
Then she sat in her car for twenty minutes furious about being hugged.
On Friday, Abby’s school counselor delivered a cardboard box.
Inside were notebooks, crayons, a library book about sharks, two pencils, a hoodie, and Abby’s desk nameplate.
RACHEL almost threw the box away.
Instead she put it beside the stairs.
At midnight she opened it.
Abby’s handwriting covered everything.
Her name on folders.
Tiny notes in margins.
A list titled THINGS I AM GOOD AT.
Drawing horses.
Finding stuff.
Holding my breath.
Making Aunt Vanessa laugh.
The fifth item was Secret cameras.
Rachel read it twice.
She turned through the notebook.
Several pages later, Abby had drawn the backyard.
A square house.
A pool.
The side gate.
A black dot beneath the roof.
An arrow pointed to it.
DAD’S RACCOON CAMERA.
Rachel sat on the floor.
Her husband, Mark, had died when Abby was four.
Cancer had reduced a loud, broad-shouldered electrician into someone who apologized when he needed help getting out of bed.
The camera had been his.
Rachel had been wrong about that.
She had told Ortiz she thought her father installed it.
Mark had mounted the camera six years earlier after an animal tore open garbage bags three nights in a row. Abby, then a toddler, called it the raccoon camera.
Rachel had forgotten.
Abby had not.
Something else was written beneath the drawing.
Uncle D says cameras don’t work if internet is off.
Rachel stopped breathing for a second.
She photographed the page and sent it to Ortiz.
The detective called within five minutes.
“When did she write this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you tell from the notebook?”
Rachel checked.
The page before contained spelling words dated April 8.
The page after had a worksheet pasted in from April 11.
“Probably April.”
“Did David visit around then?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“Once or twice a month. More after Mark died.”
“What would make him talk to Abby about cameras?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
April.
School fundraiser.
David helping repair the loose patio gate.
Abby following him around with sidewalk chalk.
A memory surfaced.
Not dramatic.
David had been standing beneath the camera, holding a screwdriver.
Abby asked if he was fixing Daddy’s raccoon camera.
David laughed.
No, Bug. That thing probably hasn’t worked in years.
Rachel had been inside carrying lemonade.
She remembered because Abby became indignant.
It works. Mom checks it.
Rachel had corrected her.
“I told her I didn’t.”
“Who was there?”
“David.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
Ortiz paused.
“Rachel, did David know whether the camera worked?”
“He thought it didn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I told Abby I hadn’t checked it since Mark died.”
Silence.
“That matters,” Ortiz said.
Rachel looked at the notebook.
“Why?”
“Because if the person in the video is David, it may explain why he used that gate.”
The next morning police returned to the house.
They examined the camera physically.
The device itself stored short clips locally and uploaded copies when the network was available. The account had remained active because Mark had prepaid a long cloud plan years earlier and Rachel never noticed the annual renewal buried among household charges.
There were gaps in the footage.
Several.
The network had disconnected at 11:02 p.m. the night Abby died.
Six minutes after the man entered.
May you like
It reconnected at 11:27.
Ortiz showed Rachel the router log on a printed sheet.
