Chapter 6 - THE PHOTO IN THE MIRROR
No one spoke for several seconds.
Lauren stood beside the detective and stared at the photograph.
Her knees seemed to weaken.
"That's not possible."
Detective Price did not accuse her.
She simply asked, "Is that you?"
Lauren stepped closer.
The reflection was small.
But the green cardigan was unmistakable.
Lauren owned one exactly like it.
So did half the women in the city, I told myself.
Then we saw the bracelet.
A silver chain with three tiny discs.
My father had given Lauren that bracelet on her eighteenth birthday.
She wore it constantly.
Lauren sat down hard.
"I didn't take that."
Emma looked at her.
"Were you ever in our bedroom while I was sleeping?"
Lauren's mouth opened.
Then closed.
Her eyes filled with tears.
"Once."
My stomach dropped.
"When?"
"June."
She covered her face.
"Mom sent me."
I felt the room tilt.
"For what?"
Lauren looked at me through her fingers.
"She said Emma wasn't answering her phone."
Emma stared at her.
"I was sleeping."
Lauren nodded miserably.
"I know."
"How did you get inside?"
Lauren did not answer.
She did not have to.
A copied key.
I stood and walked to the other side of the room.
I needed distance from everyone related to me by blood.
Lauren began speaking quickly.
"Mom told me she was worried because Emma had canceled lunch. She said pregnancy complications could happen suddenly. She gave me a key and told me to check."
Emma's voice was quiet.
"And you walked into my bedroom."
"I called your name first."
"Did I answer?"
"No."
"Then you opened the door anyway."
Lauren started crying.
"Yes."
I turned around.
"Did you take the picture?"
"No."
"Then how did it get taken?"
Lauren wiped her face.
"Mom told me to video call her."
The answer hit all of us at once.
Lauren had not photographed Emma.
She had livestreamed the room to our mother.
My mother could have taken a screenshot.
Detective Price asked to see Lauren's call history from that month.
The carrier archive showed a video call between Lauren and my mother on June 14 at 2:08 p.m.
It lasted three minutes.
The photo metadata embedded in the recovered printout was not original, but the scene matched the date.
Emma looked at Lauren with a kind of exhausted disbelief.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Lauren's answer was painfully familiar.
"Because Mom told me not to upset you."
There it was again.
Concern as camouflage.
Control disguised as protection.
Every person had been given a small task.
Check on Emma.
Bring clothes.
Look for paperwork.
Make a key.
Take a picture.
Move a chair.
Say nothing.
No single action sounded monstrous when separated from the whole.
Together, they formed a cage.
Detective Price took Lauren into another room for a formal statement.
Emma and I waited in silence.
Finally, Emma said, "She knew the bedroom layout."
I looked at her.
"What?"
"Your mother."
Emma pointed toward the recovered photograph.
"She knew where the mirror was."
I understood.
If my mother had directed Lauren during the video call, she may have intentionally told her where to stand.
The reflection might have been accidental.
Or it might have been useful later.
A way to make Lauren look responsible.
When Price returned, she had another update.
Forensic analysts had begun reviewing the cloud backup from my home network.
They found a pattern of devices connecting at unusual times.
My mother's phone.
Dana's phone.
A device registered to Gregory's security shop.
And one unidentified tablet.
The unidentified tablet had connected to our Wi-Fi seventeen times over five months.
Usually between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Almost always on weekdays.
Almost always when I was at work.
Emma's schedule varied.
Which meant whoever carried the tablet may have been checking whether she was home.
Then analysts found something more disturbing.
Our smart thermostat recorded motion events.
Not video.
Just occupancy sensors.
On seven days when Emma had told me she spent the afternoon alone, the system showed repeated movement through rooms she never used during those hours.
Guest room.
Basement.
My office.
Nursery.
Someone had been moving through the house while Emma believed she was alone.
Emma pressed both hands over her mouth.
"I heard things."
Her voice broke.
"I thought it was the house settling."
My hands went numb.
She described footsteps above her when she was downstairs.
A door clicking shut.
Once, the sound of the basement stairs.
Every time, she had convinced herself it was pipes, air pressure, fatigue.
Pregnancy brain.
Stress.
All the explanations people use when they have been trained to distrust their own senses.
Detective Price asked whether we had an attic.
We did.
Access was through the hallway ceiling.
I had not opened it in over a year.
Price called the officers at our house.
They searched the attic.
At 6:12 p.m., she received a call.
Her expression changed immediately.
She walked into the hall.
When she returned, she looked directly at Emma.
"I need you both to prepare yourselves."
I stood.
"For what?"
She set her phone down.
"They found a chair in the attic."
I frowned.
"A chair?"
"A folding chair."
She continued carefully.
"And a small hole cut through the insulation near a ceiling vent."
Emma's face went white.
Our bedroom had a ceiling vent.
So did the nursery.
Price said officers found both vents disturbed.
Near the folding chair, they found an empty water bottle, food wrappers, and a phone charger.
Someone had not simply entered our house.
Someone had stayed inside it.
Hidden above us.
Watching.
Listening.
Waiting.
And when investigators bagged the water bottle for DNA testing, they found a name written on the cap in black marker.
May you like
GREG.
