Chapter 4 - The Phone Inside the Wall
We did not go back to the house alone.
Detective Price made that clear before we left the advocacy center.
Derek had been booked on child abuse and assault-related charges, but his first court appearance would happen the next morning.
There was no guarantee he would remain in custody after that.
The prosecutor was already requesting a no-contact order.
Until then, every step had to be treated as if he might walk through the door.
Two officers met us at the house.
A crime scene technician came with them.
Mallory stayed at the center with June.
I was grateful for that.
I did not want my daughter crossing the threshold until I understood how many secrets the house had been keeping for him.
The front door looked ordinary.
That insulted me.
The brass handle still had a faint scratch from when we moved in six years earlier.
The welcome mat was crooked.
A package of paper towels sat beside the porch because delivery had come after the arrest.
Nothing outside suggested that my daughter had spent months learning which floorboards squeaked.
Detective Price unlocked the door using my key.
"Do not touch anything you do not have to."
I nodded.
The kitchen still smelled faintly of chili and soap.
I looked at the sink and nearly turned around.
Price noticed.
"We can have someone else locate the phone."
"No."
I forced myself forward.
"June trusted me with where it is."
Her bedroom was at the end of the hall.
Derek had painted it pale yellow when she was five.
He made a show of letting her choose the color.
For years I had remembered that weekend as evidence that he could be a good father when he wanted to be.
Now even that memory felt contaminated.
I stood in the center of the room and tried to think like June.
"Inside the wall" could have meant anything to a child.
The technician asked whether she had mentioned an outlet, vent, or loose panel.
I shook my head.
Then I saw the bookshelf.
A row of paperback animal stories sat against the left wall.
Behind them, near the floor, was a cold-air return vent.
June had always hated dusting around it.
I used to tease her about it.
My chest tightened.
The technician removed four screws.
The vent cover came away.
Nothing was visible at first.
Then he shined a flashlight into the narrow cavity.
"There."
A phone had been wrapped in a pink sock and wedged behind a metal support.
It was old.
A cracked black screen.
No case.
I recognized it immediately.
"That was mine."
Detective Price looked at me.
"When did you use it?"
"Three years ago."
"Why did you stop?"
"The battery started failing."
I stared at the device.
"I thought I recycled it."
Price did not touch it.
The technician photographed it in place and bagged it.
"If it powers on, we may need a warrant depending on ownership and contents."
"It was my phone."
"And your daughter says her father made her hide it."
Price's expression hardened.
"That makes the chain of custody matter."
We spent another hour in the house.
The officers documented the pantry.
There were scratches on the inside of the lower door.
I had never noticed them.
I had never thought to look.
The latch was on the outside.
That detail made one of the officers stop writing for a second.
"Was that always there?"
I stared at it.
"No."
"Do you know when it was installed?"
I thought back.
Derek had replaced the pantry door the previous fall because he said the old one warped.
He installed the latch himself.
"October."
The officer photographed it.
My stomach rolled.
In the garage, the technician found a box of old electronics.
Three phones.
Two tablets.
A small action camera.
A hard drive.
Derek had told me all of them were broken.
Detective Price looked at the box.
"Do you know why he kept these?"
"He never threw electronics away."
"Why?"
"He said he didn't trust recycling centers with data."
She looked at me.
"Maybe he was right about that."
By late afternoon, the old phone from June's wall was in the digital forensics lab.
It still powered on.
The battery barely held a charge, but the technician connected it to external power and photographed the lock screen.
It showed a picture of June at age five.
That hurt more than I expected.
The device had no passcode.
That made no sense until the technician opened the settings.
It had been reset under a child profile.
The only active applications were the camera, voice recorder, and notes.
There was no cellular service.
No browser history.
No games.
No messaging accounts.
It was not a phone anymore.
It was a tool.
The voice recorder contained twenty-three files.
The oldest was seven months old.
The newest was from three days earlier.
Detective Price asked whether I wanted to step out before they played anything.
I said no.
I regretted that decision four seconds into the first recording.
Derek's voice filled the small lab speaker.
"Start again."
June sniffed.
"I'm sorry I lied."
"Louder."
"I'm sorry I lied."
"About what?"
"About the pantry."
"And why did you lie?"
A long silence.
Then June whispered.
"Because I wanted attention."
Derek exhaled.
"Good."
The recording ended.
I gripped the edge of the table.
Detective Price did not look at me.
She clicked the second file.
This one was shorter.
Derek was angry.
"If you tell your mother, she loses the house."
June's voice was barely audible.
"Why?"
"Because I know things about her."
"What things?"
"Things grown-ups go to jail for."
The audio ended.
I stared at the waveform on the monitor.
"There are no things."
Price looked at me.
"I believe you."
"I have never done anything that would send me to jail."
"He did not need it to be true."
I knew that.
Still, hearing him invent a crime out of nothing explained a fear in June I had never understood.
She had asked me for months whether people could go to prison for accidents.
I thought she was fascinated by a classroom discussion.
Derek had been building a cage inside her mind.
The third recording was stranger.
There was no crying.
Only Derek and another man speaking in low voices.
At first I could not identify the second voice.
Then he laughed.
I knew that laugh.
Robert Kline.
The principal.
The file date was the same week June spoke to the school counselor.
"She went to Lane again," Kline said.
"I know."
Derek sounded irritated.
"You said you handled that."
"I handled the contact information."
"And the note?"
"I put it where it needs to be."
Derek muttered something too quiet for the microphone.
Kline answered.
"You need to calm down with the visible stuff."
My skin went cold.
Derek laughed.
"You're giving me parenting advice now?"
"I'm giving you practical advice."
"Same difference."
There was a scrape, as if one of them moved a chair.
Then Kline said something that changed the entire direction of the case.
"If she gets another report, I can't bury it twice."
The recording ended.
Nobody spoke.
Detective Price replayed the last sentence.
Then she played it again.
"If she gets another report, I can't bury it twice."
Price stood.
"We need a warrant for Kline's devices immediately."
The digital technician held up one finger.
"There's more."
The next recording was from two months later.
Derek was alone.
He sounded as if he were speaking to June.
"You are going to remember the rules."
June said nothing.
"Rule one."
"Don't tell Mom."
"Rule two."
"Don't tell school."
"Rule three."
A pause.
"If someone asks, I fell."
"Rule four."
June's voice broke.
"I don't remember."
A sharp sound came through the speaker.
Not a strike.
A hand hitting a table.
June gasped.
Derek lowered his voice.
"Rule four."
"If Mom tries to leave, it's because I made her hate you."
I stopped the recording.
My hand was shaking so badly I almost knocked the mouse from the desk.
"He told her that?"
No one answered.
I did not need an answer.
For months, June had become clingier whenever I argued with Derek.
She cried when I packed an overnight bag for a work trip.
She once begged me not to sleep in the guest room after a fight.
I had thought she was afraid our marriage was ending.
She was afraid it would end because of her.
The room blurred.
Detective Price handed me a box of tissues.
I did not use them.
I wanted the anger more than I wanted the relief.
There were nineteen more recordings.
Some were only seconds long.
Some captured Derek making June repeat apologies.
Some contained him mocking her after she cried.
One had only silence for almost nine minutes before a cupboard door opened and June's breathing became audible.
Then came the twenty-second file.
It was recorded at 11:06 p.m. on a night I had been working late.
Derek was speaking to someone on the phone.
His voice was casual.
"Tessa's getting suspicious."
A muffled voice answered from the speakerphone, too distorted to identify.
Derek laughed.
"No, she doesn't know about the other folder."
The person said something.
Derek replied.
"If she finds it, we have a bigger problem than child services."
My heart stopped.
Detective Price looked at the technician.
"Can you clean up the other voice?"
"Maybe."
I stared at the screen.
"What other folder?"
Nobody knew.
Then the final recording started automatically.
It had been made three days before the chili incident.
Derek was whispering.
"You keep this phone where I told you."
June's voice trembled.
"Why?"
"Because one day your mother might need proof."
Every person in the room looked up.
I felt the blood leave my face.
Derek continued.
"But you do not give it to her until I tell you."
June whispered.
"Why?"
Derek's answer was almost gentle.
"Because I need to know what she'll do when she thinks she finally won."
The recording ended.
For the first time, the evidence did not feel like something he had forgotten to erase.
May you like
It felt like something he had wanted us to find.
