Chapter 7 - The Night I Couldn't Remember
Priya took my phone, photographed the messages with hers, and told Dana to preserve every video exactly as received.
Then she pulled me into the hallway.
"We need the original bedroom footage."
"The cloud copy is gone."
"Then find another copy."
"Sarah deleted the old camera."
"Deleted from where?"
I stopped.
The current cloud system.
Not necessarily the local hub.
Our security installer had insisted on a basement recorder because our internet went down during storms.
Sarah hated it because the interface looked ancient.
I had not checked it in years.
I left Lily with Evelyn and drove home with Priya behind me.
Sarah's car was gone.
Good.
In the basement, I pulled a dusty black recorder from behind the network cabinet.
The date display blinked 2019.
Priya crouched beside me.
"Tell me this thing still works."
"I have no idea."
I connected a monitor.
Static.
Then four camera channels appeared.
The bedroom feed no longer existed live, but the recorder retained overwritten fragments.
I searched the night of the video.
8:01.
Kitchen.
Sarah handed me the blue ceramic cup.
I watched myself drink.
8:09.
Hallway.
I rubbed my eyes and leaned against the wall.
8:17.
Sarah stood beside the living-room camera adjusting her phone mount.
8:24.
She followed me upstairs.
8:31.
Her voice floated down the hall.
"Marcus, why are you angry?"
My voice sounded thick.
"I'm not angry. Stop asking me that."
"You're scaring Lily."
"I'm trying to put her blanket back."
"You don't even know where you are."
"Sarah, enough."
At 8:34, the edited video began.
Same frame.
Same moment.
But now the context was obvious.
I gripped the table until my knuckles whitened.
Priya whispered, "Keep going."
At 8:39, I stumbled out of Lily's room.
Sarah stayed behind.
Her phone screen glowed.
Speaker mode.
A man's voice came through.
Julian.
"How was it?"
Sarah looked toward the hallway.
"Strong. He could barely stand."
"Child crying?"
"Yes."
"Good."
Sarah flinched.
"Don't say good."
"You want the plan to work or not?"
"I want this finished."
Julian paused.
"How many episodes?"
"Three documented."
"We need one witnessed."
Priya looked at me.
The wording matched the note in Sarah's desk.
Witness + child.
January 14.
My throat tightened.
Sarah paced the bedroom.
"Vale says the capacity petition is stronger if the episode occurs around Lily."
"Then arrange it."
"I can't control Marcus every second."
"You control what he drinks."
I looked away from the screen.
Priya's face had gone hard.
"That's enough for police," she said.
"Keep watching."
The recording continued.
Sarah lowered her voice.
"What if the evaluation doesn't work?"
Silence.
Julian finally answered.
"Then we stop trying to prove he's impaired."
Sarah stood still.
"What does that mean?"
"It means we use the stairs."
My skin tightened.
Priya leaned closer to the speaker.
Sarah gave a nervous laugh.
"What stairs?"
"The beach house. Back staircase. Old railing."
Sarah's face changed.
"No."
"Don't be dramatic."
"You said guardianship. Trustee removal. Nobody gets hurt."
"Nobody needs to get hurt if Marcus cooperates."
"He doesn't know anything."
"He knows more than you think."
Sarah started shaking her head.
"No. We are not doing that."
Julian's voice sharpened.
"You don't get to develop morals after ten months in his bed."
Sarah ended the call.
For several seconds she stood alone beside Lily's bed.
Then she covered her face with both hands.
I felt nothing resembling sympathy.
But something shifted.
Sarah might be dangerous.
Julian was worse.
A car door slammed upstairs.
Priya and I froze.
Footsteps crossed the kitchen.
Sarah.
The basement door opened.
"Marcus?"
Priya whispered, "Do not confront her."
I ejected the recorder drive and slid it inside my jacket.
Sarah came down three steps.
"Why are you in the basement?"
I picked up a screwdriver.
"Internet died."
Her eyes moved to Priya.
"And your attorney repairs routers?"
Priya smiled.
"Only expensive ones."
Sarah's face did not change.
"Where's Lily?"
"With Evelyn."
"Still?"
"She wants a sleepover."
Sarah stepped down another stair.
Her gaze flicked toward the security recorder.
The empty drive slot was visible.
My pulse slammed once.
Sarah looked at me.
Then at Priya.
Then back at the recorder.
"What did you take?"
I held the screwdriver loosely.
"What are you talking about?"
Sarah descended the last steps.
Her eyes were wet now.
"Marcus, please."
The word almost sounded real.
"If you found something, don't show Julian."
Priya's hand moved toward her phone.
I said, "Why?"
Sarah's mouth opened.
A vibration cut through the room.
Her phone.
She checked the screen.
All the color left her face.
"What?" I asked.
She looked toward the ceiling.
"He knows you're home."
"Who?"
Sarah swallowed.
"Julian."
My phone rang at the same time.
Evelyn.
I answered.
Her voice came out breathless.
"Marcus, someone was outside my house. A man. He drove away when I turned on the porch light."
Sarah closed her eyes.
"Get Lily out of there," I said.
"Where?"
Sarah opened her eyes again.
"Not the police station," she whispered.
Priya copied the local recording onto two encrypted drives while I watched the basement door.
"If Sarah comes back before we're done, let me talk," she said.
"She watched my daughter get drugged and cried on cue for a camera. I'm running low on conversational restraint."
"That's why I'm talking."
She ejected the first copy and placed it in a tamper bag.
Then she pointed to the metadata screen.
"Look at the camera clock."
The system was seven minutes slow.
My stomach tightened.
That meant the visible 8:17 on Lily's drawing was not copied from the security system. Lily had remembered the kitchen clock herself.
The seventeen-minute pattern became stronger, not weaker.
I pulled up another archived night.
Blue cup at 7:42.
Sarah began filming me at 7:59.
Seventeen minutes.
Another.
Tea at 9:03.
Video at 9:20.
Seventeen.
Again.
My skin went cold.
"She timed the onset," Priya said.
"Like a dosage schedule."
"Like an experiment."
I opened a clip I had never seen.
Sarah stood alone in the kitchen with a notebook.
She wrote three columns.
Dose.
Time.
Response.
Beside one line she wrote: M - irritable, 17m.
Beside another: L - sleepy/crying, 16-18m.
Priya stopped breathing for a beat.
"Photograph that."
I did.
Then I saw a fourth column partly hidden under her wrist.
Witness.
Names appeared beside planned dates.
Neighbor.
Teacher.
School counselor.
January 14 had one word next to it.
Public.
This was not a private medical evaluation.
They wanted an episode somewhere other people could see it.
I stared at her.
"Why not?"
Her lower lip trembled once.
May you like
"Because Julian already has someone there."
