Chapter 3 - What They Found When They Came HomeAt 5:37 p.m., Travis Miller returned home.
Beside him sat Deborah.
Madison.
Frank.
The SUV trunk contained eleven shopping bags.
A handbag.
Shoes.
Perfume.
Two boxes from an electronics store.
According to the doorbell recording, Madison was laughing as she walked toward the house.
Then she stopped.
The front door was hanging partly broken from its frame.
Yellow evidence tape crossed the entrance.
The laughter disappeared.
“What happened?”
Travis ran forward.
The living room looked nothing like the room they had left.
Couch cushions scattered.
Medical packaging on the floor.
Used electrode backing strips.
A cut section of my clothing.
Blood staining one towel.
Wheel marks from the stretcher.
A firefighter’s discarded glove.
On the coffee table sat an evidence marker beside the place where paramedics had treated me.
Deborah whispered:
“She called someone.”
Travis stared at her.
“She couldn’t.”
That sentence would later become very important.
Frank asked:
“What do you mean, she couldn’t?”
Travis did not answer.
He walked deeper inside.
“Hannah?”
Nothing.
“HANNAH?”
No answer.
Then he saw the dining table.
A white envelope.
Inside:
The resident was transported by emergency medical services following a reported obstetric emergency. Contact St. Matthew’s Women’s Hospital. Law enforcement has documented the scene.
Travis’s hands began shaking.
Madison whispered:
“This looks like a crime scene.”
It was not technically one yet.
But to Travis—
it looked close enough.
Then someone knocked against the damaged door.
Two uniformed officers.
“Mr. Travis Miller?”
“Yes.”
“We need to speak with you regarding the events that occurred here this afternoon.”
The shopping bags slipped from his hands.
A box containing Deborah’s new handbag hit the floor.
Travis asked:
“Is my wife alive?”
One officer replied:
“She’s at the hospital.”
“The babies?”
“You’ll need to contact medical staff.”
Travis turned toward his mother.
Whatever confidence had carried him through the afternoon vanished.
He dropped to his knees.
“What did we do?”
Deborah immediately said:
“Stand up.”
He didn’t.
“What did we do?”
She grabbed his shoulder.
“This is Hannah’s fault.”
The officers looked at her.
Deborah continued.
“She always exaggerates.”
One officer activated his body camera.
It was already recording.
Good.
Because Deborah kept talking.
“She could have called an Uber.”
Travis whispered:
“I disabled the lock.”
Silence.
Deborah looked at him.
“What?”
“I disabled her code.”
“Why?”
“So she wouldn’t take the car after I told her to wait.”
The officer asked calmly:
“You knowingly disabled your pregnant wife’s ability to leave the residence?”
Travis realized what he had said.
May you like
He stopped talking.
Too late.
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