Chapter 3 - What Lily Saw
After the officers left, I locked the apartment door and sat with Lily on the bedroom floor.
She held the stuffed fox beneath her chin while I brushed the knots from her hair.
I did not ask leading questions. Andrew’s sister was a child therapist, and she had taught me that frightened children needed space more than suggestions.
“Tell me what happened from the beginning.”
Lily stared at the fox.
“Grandma opened your drawers.”
“Which drawers?”
“The desk ones. Aunt Melissa used your computer.”
She said they became angry when they could not open the small fireproof box in my closet. That box held Andrew’s trust documents, Lily’s birth certificate, and copies of my will.
Lily knew she was not supposed to touch it.
She also knew no one else was supposed to touch it.
When Evelyn carried the box toward the living room, Lily stood in front of the door and told her to put it back.
My mother called her disrespectful.
Melissa took away her tablet and threatened to throw out her stuffed animals. Lily ran into my bedroom, locked the door, and called me from the old emergency phone I kept in the nightstand.
She never reached me.
Melissa found the phone first.
“They banged on the door,” Lily whispered. “Grandma said police take children who don’t listen.”
“Did anyone hurt you?”
Lily shook her head.
“Grandma squeezed my hand. Aunt Melissa kept filming.”
“Why?”
“She said you needed to see how bad I was.”
I looked toward the smoke detector above the bookshelf.
Andrew had installed a small home-security camera there after a break-in in our old neighborhood. It only recorded when the alarm system detected unusual movement or loud noise.
Evelyn knew about the door cameras.
She did not know about that one.
May you like
I opened the security application.
There were four hours of saved footage.
