Chapter 4 - THE COUSIN WHO LEFT TOO EARLY
Dana lived twenty minutes from my house.
She was thirty-two, worked in medical billing, and had spent most of my childhood functioning like a younger sister.
She had held the microphone at my wedding.
She had cried when Emma announced the pregnancy.
She had volunteered to organize the baby shower.
Now her fingerprint was inside my office after a break-in.
I stared at Detective Price across the temporary apartment's tiny kitchen table.
"Are you sure?"
"A fingerprint examiner made the comparison from a prior licensing record."
Price folded her hands.
"It is a strong preliminary match, but the lab will confirm."
Emma sat beside Rachel on the couch.
Her face had gone blank again.
"Why would Dana want the drive?" she asked.
Detective Price looked at me.
"What was on it besides security video?"
"Tax records. Work backups. Photos."
I thought harder.
"Old camera footage."
"How old?"
"About six months."
Price wrote something down.
Emma's eyes sharpened.
"Six months?"
I nodded.
She turned toward me fully.
"Do you remember the night I thought someone had been in the nursery?"
I did.
Late May.
We had gone to dinner.
When we came home, a drawer filled with newborn clothes was open.
Emma said she was certain she had closed it.
I checked the doorbell camera then.
Nothing.
The system showed no entry.
We assumed the drawer had slid open on its own.
Now that memory felt ridiculous.
"The basement window," I said.
Emma nodded.
Detective Price asked for the date.
We found it in a text Emma had sent Rachel that night.
May 27.
Price leaned back.
"If your backup drive stored interior camera logs or router data from that period, someone may be worried about what it contains."
I shook my head.
"We don't have interior cameras."
"Router logs?"
"Maybe device connections."
Marcus had installed the home network.
I called him.
He confirmed the router automatically logged devices that connected to Wi-Fi.
The backup software copied those logs once a week.
Price asked a new question.
"Did your mother know the Wi-Fi password?"
I laughed once without humor.
"Everyone knew it."
Family dinners.
Holidays.
Visits.
The password had been taped under the guest-room desk for years.
Price asked Marcus whether cloud backups existed.
He went quiet.
Then he said, "Maybe."
That one word shifted the room.
Marcus explained he had configured my system to mirror critical backups to a private storage account after my laptop crashed the previous year.
I had forgotten entirely.
The missing hard drive might not matter.
He logged in remotely from his house and found the archive.
The data went back eight months.
Detective Price asked us not to explore it ourselves.
She wanted a forensic copy preserved first.
By evening, police had the account credentials and a warrant request underway.
Dana, meanwhile, had stopped answering calls.
Her apartment was empty.
Her employer said she had called in sick.
Her boyfriend claimed they had broken up two weeks earlier.
My mother publicly defended her.
I knew because relatives began forwarding me social media posts.
My mother never named Emma.
She did not need to.
She wrote about "a family being torn apart by false accusations."
She wrote that "private disagreements should never become criminal spectacles."
She wrote that "pregnancy can be emotionally overwhelming for everyone involved."
The comments were full of heart emojis and prayers.
I wanted to respond.
Emma stopped me.
"Don't."
Her voice was steady.
"She wants us arguing online while the evidence gets buried."
I looked at my wife and realized fear had not made her weak.
It had made her precise.
The next morning, Detective Price called us to the station.
Lauren was already there.
So was Uncle Raymond.
He sat in the lobby with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.
When he saw me, he stood.
"I should have stopped her."
I did not answer.
He looked at Emma.
"I should have stopped all of it."
Emma did not comfort him.
I was proud of her for that.
Inside an interview room, Raymond explained why he had finally come forward.
After the dinner, my mother called a family meeting at Aunt Celeste's house.
She ordered everyone to repeat the same story.
Emma had panicked.
Emma had grabbed food too quickly.
Emma had accused everyone because she was angry about the guardianship argument.
Raymond said he refused.
My mother told him silence was enough.
Then Dana arrived carrying our blue legal envelope.
My heartbeat changed.
"Dana had the will?"
Raymond nodded.
"She said she took it from your nursery before the dinner started."
Emma covered her mouth.
"Before?"
Raymond nodded again.
That meant the search had happened before the confrontation.
The dinner had not escalated spontaneously after someone discovered the papers.
They had found the affidavit first.
They had discussed it.
Then they had gathered around Emma.
The entire scene had been planned.
Raymond continued.
Dana had also brought a small notebook.
Inside were dates.
Appointments.
Times I left for work.
Times Emma's prenatal visits were scheduled.
Which days Rachel visited.
Which nights we stayed home.
A schedule of our lives.
Emma's face lost all color.
"Whose handwriting?"
Raymond looked down.
"Marian's."
My mother's.
Detective Price asked whether the notebook was still at Celeste's house.
Raymond shook his head.
"Marian burned it in the fireplace after Lauren said she recorded the dinner."
Price's pen stopped.
"You witnessed that?"
"Yes."
"Who else?"
"Celeste. Dana."
Raymond swallowed.
"And Gregory."
I frowned.
"Gregory who?"
Raymond looked at me as though he wished someone else could answer.
"Your mother's locksmith."
The room became very quiet.
I had known Gregory Hale my entire life.
He owned a small lock and security shop near my parents' neighborhood.
He had changed the locks on my first apartment.
He had installed the deadbolt on our current house when Emma and I moved in.
He knew exactly how our locks worked.
He also knew my mother.
Very well.
Detective Price asked one final question.
"What was Gregory doing at that meeting?"
Raymond rubbed both hands over his face.
"Marian was paying him."
I felt cold.
"For what?"
Raymond looked at Emma.
Then at me.
"To make keys."
He took a shaky breath.
"Not just to your house."
I stared at him.
"What else?"
Raymond's answer landed like a blow.
May you like
"Your wife's car."
