Chapter 3 - The Missing Minute
By midnight, Daniel was awake but disoriented.
He remembered opening the front door.
He remembered Emily shouting.
He remembered nothing after that.
"Where's Lily?" he asked.
Emily moved closer to the bed. "She's okay. Bruised, scared, but okay."
His eyes shut in relief.
Then he noticed the detective.
"Why is the police here?"
Emily told him.
Not the shortened version. Not the polite version.
Everything.
Daniel listened without interrupting.
When she finished, his face had gone pale.
"Vanessa kicked Lily?"
"Yes."
"My sister?"
"Daniel, I saw it."
His eyes moved toward the ceiling.
Emily knew that look. He wanted to believe her, but believing her meant accepting that his own sister had intentionally hurt his child.
"The camera," he said.
Detective Ruiz nodded. "That's what we need."
Daniel gave him permission to retrieve the system.
At 1:17 a.m., another officer went to the house.
At 2:03 a.m., Ruiz came back to the hospital with his mouth set in a hard line.
"The camera was working," he said. "But there's a gap."
Emily felt cold.
"What kind of gap?"
"Exactly sixty-eight seconds missing from the recording."
Daniel sat up too quickly and winced.
"When?"
Ruiz looked at both of them.
"The minute Lily fell."
Emily stared at him.
"Can someone delete just one part?"
"Yes, if they have administrator access."
Daniel's face changed.
He knew.
"Vanessa has the code," he said.
Emily turned toward him.
"Why?"
"Because she set up the account when we moved in."
Emily looked down at Lily asleep in the chair beside her.
Daniel whispered, "I should've changed it."
Ruiz placed a small evidence bag on the table.
Inside was a tiny black object.
"We also found this behind the console table."
Daniel frowned. "What is it?"
"A microSD card."
Emily's heart started pounding.
Ruiz continued.
"We don't know what's on it yet."
Then his phone buzzed.
He read the message and looked up.
"Actually," he said, "we may know sooner than I thought."
He paused.
"The card contains video from inside your house. A lot of it."
Daniel stared at him.
"From our cameras?"
May you like
Ruiz shook his head.
"No. From cameras you didn't know were there."
