Chapter 4 - THE MISSING FOUR MINUTES
Detective Ruiz called Claire at 6:18 Tuesday morning.
"Don't contact your husband about the device."
Claire sat up in Megan's guest bed.
"Why?"
"Because I want him to keep believing we don't have anything useful."
The deputy's presence made Claire strangely grateful and deeply humiliated at the same time.
He stood politely near the stairs while she packed underwear, socks, and a toothbrush from her own home.
Claire kept expecting him to look judgmental.
He never did.
At one point he noticed a framed photograph of Emma missing two front teeth and smiled.
"My daughter made that exact face at seven."
Claire almost cried from the normal conversation.
She realized how quickly the case had turned every human interaction into an evaluation.
Safe mother.
Unsafe mother.
Credible wife.
Unstable wife.
The deputy simply saw a child's goofy school picture.
For thirty seconds, Claire was not a file.
Then she saw the missing prescription bottle and the feeling vanished.
Claire's heart sped up.
"Do we?"
Ruiz paused.
"We have inconsistencies."
"That's not the same thing."
"No."
Claire swung her feet to the floor.
"Can you tell me what LIVINGROOM AUX 2 was?"
"Not yet."
"Detective."
"Mrs. Morgan, I am not your attorney."
"I know."
"And I am not investigating your marriage."
"Then what are you investigating?"
Ruiz answered carefully.
"What happened to a seven-year-old child in that room."
It was the right answer.
Claire hated how little comfort it gave her.
At ten, Nora accompanied Claire to the Morgan house with a sheriff's deputy so she could collect clothing and work materials.
Daniel had taken Emma to school.
The house felt like a museum built around Claire's own life.
Her shoes were by the stairs.
Her mail sat unopened on the console.
A grocery list in her handwriting was still magnetized to the refrigerator.
Milk.
Apples.
Emma's yogurt.
Laundry detergent.
None of it belonged to her anymore.
The deputy remained near the entry while Nora followed Claire upstairs.
"We have twenty minutes."
Claire nodded.
In the bedroom, she pulled open drawers without knowing what she needed.
Nora watched her for a moment.
"Get practical things first."
"I built this room."
"I know."
"I chose those curtains because Emma said the old ones looked like hospital sheets."
Nora did not rush her.
Claire packed jeans, sweaters, toiletries, and her laptop charger.
Then she opened the bathroom cabinet and froze.
Her prescription bottle was gone.
"Nora."
The attorney came closer.
"What?"
"My medication was here."
"Are you sure?"
"Always."
Claire checked the drawer beneath it.
Empty.
The laundry basket.
Nothing.
Nora took a photograph of the shelf.
"Do you have the pharmacy record?"
"In the app."
They returned downstairs.
Claire stopped beside the kitchen island.
The broken blue mug was gone.
The tile had been cleaned.
That was not strange by itself.
Daniel had a child in the house.
Of course he cleaned broken ceramic.
But Claire remembered the tea stain.
She walked to the trash cabinet.
The bag inside was new.
"Trash pickup is Wednesday."
Nora looked at her.
"So?"
"Daniel never takes it out early."
"Never is a dangerous word."
"Then almost never."
Nora photographed the empty bin.
Claire crossed toward the bookshelf.
The circular dust mark was gone.
The entire shelf had been wiped clean.
Every frame had been moved slightly.
Claire touched the wood.
"He cleaned this too."
Nora's expression hardened.
"We document it."
Claire crouched and looked behind the cabinet.
A power cord ran from the wall to the television.
Another thin cable disappeared into a hole near the baseboard.
She followed it with her eyes.
It did not connect to the television.
It ran behind the built-in shelves.
"What is that?"
Nora crouched beside her.
The deputy came over when they called him.
He told them not to remove anything.
Ruiz arrived twenty-five minutes later.
Daniel came home while the detective was examining the cable.
He entered through the garage and stopped dead when he saw the group in his living room.
"What's going on?"
Ruiz stood.
"Mrs. Morgan is collecting court-approved belongings."
Daniel looked at Claire.
"Why is he here?"
"I called him," Nora said.
Daniel's eyes moved to the cable.
"That's part of the old sound system."
Ruiz followed it behind the cabinet and into a small utility opening.
There he found a compact power adapter and an empty adhesive mount.
Whatever had been attached was gone.
"Old sound system?"
Daniel shoved his hands into his pockets.
"The previous owner wired speakers through the room."
Ruiz photographed the mount.
"Does the old sound system show up on your smart-home account as AUX 2?"
Daniel's jaw moved.
"I don't know."
"You removed AUX 2 from the account Sunday morning."
Silence.
Claire watched the blood drain slightly from Daniel's face.
"I was cleaning up devices after the police left."
"At two thirteen in the morning?"
"I couldn't sleep."
Ruiz nodded as if that were perfectly ordinary.
"What did you remove?"
Daniel looked at the empty mount.
"I don't remember."
Claire almost laughed.
The phrase was hers.
Now it sounded entirely different coming from him.
Ruiz's phone rang.
He stepped outside to answer it.
Daniel moved closer to Claire while Nora was speaking with the deputy.
"You're making this worse."
Claire kept her voice low.
"For who?"
"For Emma."
"Then tell me what happened."
"I already did."
"Why did you delete a device you say you never saw?"
Daniel's eyes sharpened.
"Because I am trying to hold together a house where my wife almost attacked our child."
Claire's hands trembled, but her voice did not.
"You sent me upstairs one minute before the camera disconnected."
Daniel froze.
Only for a breath.
Then he recovered.
"What are you talking about?"
"My phone wasn't charging."
"Maybe you remembered wrong."
"Maybe."
Claire stepped closer.
"Or maybe you needed me out of the room."
Nora appeared between them immediately.
"We're done here."
Daniel turned away.
Ruiz came back inside.
His expression had changed.
"Mr. Morgan, I need to ask you about the backyard camera."
Daniel looked confused.
"What backyard camera?"
"The one mounted under the patio roof."
"It hasn't worked in months."
Ruiz nodded.
"That's what your system log says."
Claire watched him.
Ruiz continued.
"But the manufacturer keeps a short diagnostic buffer even after a device is marked inactive."
Daniel did not blink.
"Okay."
"We recovered part of Saturday morning."
Claire stopped breathing.
Ruiz looked directly at Daniel.
"There are four minutes we need to talk about."
Daniel's face changed.
Not fear.
Not yet.
Calculation.
Claire recognized it because she had seen that same look across kitchen tables whenever Daniel balanced a problem in his head.
Ruiz put his phone away.
"At 10:39, you were not by the pool equipment."
Daniel's shoulders stiffened.
"Where was I?"
Ruiz's answer came slowly.
"You were standing outside the glass door."
May you like
Claire felt the room narrow around her.
"Watching."
