Chapter 2 - The Stories in the Freezer
Mom did not ask Ryan another question.
She called 911.
Ryan stared at her as if she had betrayed him.
"You're calling the police on your own son?"
Mom's hand shook around the phone.
"I'm calling because my daughter says you hit her."
"She's lying."
Ellie flinched.
Mom saw it.
So did Dad.
That flinch did more than any argument could have.
Dad walked to the front door and opened it.
"Go outside."
Ryan laughed.
"You can't be serious."
"Outside."
"This is my house too."
Dad's voice dropped.
"Not tonight."
Ryan looked at me.
"You did this."
I said nothing.
That irritated him more than shouting would have.
He grabbed his jacket and walked onto the porch.
Dad followed but stayed inside the doorway until police arrived.
Mom sat at the table with Ellie.
I stayed on Ellie's other side.
No one touched her without asking.
A patrol officer spoke to Ryan outside.
Another, Officer Maren Holt, came into the kitchen.
She did not begin with the bruise.
She began with the latch.
Then the ice packs.
Then she asked Ellie whether she wanted Mom and me in the room while she talked.
Ellie nodded.
"Does Ryan make you use those?"
"Yes."
"Why are there words on them?"
Ellie swallowed.
"So I don't get the stories mixed up."
Mom started crying again.
Ellie immediately looked frightened.
"Mom?"
Mom wiped her face.
"You're not in trouble. I'm sorry. Keep talking if you want to."
Officer Holt asked, "What happens if you get the story wrong?"
Ellie stared at the table.
"He makes me say it again."
"To him?"
"To the camera."
I felt cold.
"What camera?"
Ellie looked toward the living room.
"The old tablet."
Mom frowned.
"The white one?"
We had an old family tablet that barely held a charge. Mom used it for recipes. Dad sometimes watched repair videos on it.
Ellie nodded.
"Ryan keeps it in the hall closet."
Officer Holt told us not to touch anything until she looked.
She found the tablet behind a stack of board games.
It was powered off.
Ryan had told Mom months ago that it was broken.
It wasn't.
The battery had simply been removed.
The officer photographed everything before putting the battery back in.
The lock screen appeared.
No password.
Inside the video folder were forty-three files.
Most were less than thirty seconds.
The first one showed Ellie sitting at our kitchen table three months earlier.
A yellow bruise was visible near her elbow.
Ryan's voice came from behind the camera.
"What happened?"
Ellie stared down.
"I fell on the stairs."
"Again."
"I fell on the stairs."
"Look at me."
She lifted her eyes.
"I fell on the stairs."
The clip ended.
Mom made a sound like she couldn't breathe.
The second video was labeled BIKE.
The third, DOOR.
The names matched the masking tape on the ice packs.
Ryan had not been improvising excuses after the fact.
He had built a library of them.
Then Officer Holt opened the final video.
It had been recorded that afternoon.
Ellie stood in the bathroom doorway.
Ryan's voice:
"Say it right."
Ellie whispered, "I bumped my arm on the sink."
"And?"
"And I locked myself in because I was mad."
"Good."
Then Ryan moved toward the tablet.
We thought the recording would stop.
It didn't.
His hand covered half the lens.
His voice became quiet.
"And you are never going to say bicycle again. Understand?"
Ellie whispered, "But that man—"
Ryan cut her off.
"County Road Eight never happened."
The video ended.
Dad looked at Ellie.
"What happened on County Road Eight?"
Ellie covered her face with both hands.
Then she said something none of us expected.
"Ryan didn't hit a deer."
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