Chapter 15 - The Full Recording
The full video began seven minutes before the first slap.
Emily watched it in Leah’s office with Daniel and Detective Ruiz.
Margaret entered the kitchen alone.
She checked the hallway.
Then she took Emily’s phone from the counter.
She held it up to Emily’s sleeping face in a photograph displayed on another device.
Face unlock failed.
She tried a passcode.
Failed again.
Then she put the phone back.
A few minutes later, Emily entered.
The argument began.
This time there was no missing thirty-two seconds.
They saw the first slap.
The second.
Margaret grabbing Emily’s hair.
Margaret forcing her forehead into the table.
Emily blocking her next strike.
Emily shoving her away.
Emily finally slapping back.
Daniel turned his face away.
Emily did not.
She made herself watch.
Not because she enjoyed it.
Because she was done allowing other people to define what had happened to her.
Then came the part Margaret had forgotten.
After Emily doubled over in pain and Daniel had not yet entered, Margaret stepped toward the home-office doorway.
She pulled a phone from her pocket.
The camera had no sound there, but the phone screen was visible when she held it up.
A banking app.
A transfer confirmation.
Timestamp: 12:46 p.m.
Ruiz leaned forward.
“That links her directly to the company wire attempt.”
Leah nodded. “And the device identifier can be subpoenaed.”
Emily stared at Margaret’s image frozen on the screen.
While Emily had been protecting her unborn child from another attack, Margaret had been trying to steal nearly a quarter-million dollars.
Daniel whispered, “She never lost control.”
Emily looked at him.
“What?”
“I kept telling myself she snapped. That grief changed her. That anger got out of hand.”
His voice broke.
“But she planned it.”
Ruiz closed the laptop.
“We have enough to request additional charges.”
His phone rang before anyone could answer.
He stepped into the hallway.
When he returned, his expression had changed.
“What happened?” Daniel asked.
Ruiz looked at them.
“Margaret is gone.”
Daniel stood.
“What do you mean gone?”
“She failed to report for an interview. Her car was found at a bus station.”
Emily’s hand moved over her belly.
Ruiz continued.
“And someone used her credit card forty minutes ago.”
“Where?”
“At a gas station twelve miles from your father’s old lake house.”
Daniel’s face went white.
May you like
The lake house had been empty since Robert died.
And Margaret still had a key.
