Chapter 7 - Emma's VideoNo one understood at first.
“What video?” Sarah asked.
Emma looked embarrassed.
“I was making a movie.”
Tuesday afternoon, before entering Linda's room, Emma had been playing with a small digital camera Daniel bought her for her birthday.
Not a phone.
A cheap children's camera with a red USB storage stick.
Emma filmed everything.
The backyard.
A squirrel.
Her shoes.
Then she carried the camera downstairs looking for her markers.
When she heard Linda laughing, she pushed open the bedroom door with the camera still recording.
Sarah's heartbeat accelerated.
“You recorded Grandma and Wade?”
Emma nodded.
“I forgot it was on.”
That changed everything.
The red drive wasn't financial evidence.
It was potentially something better.
Audio and video of Linda and Wade together with the cash.
Emma said the camera had fallen near the door when Wade grabbed her.
She removed the memory drive because she thought he might take the camera.
“I put it in Grandma's boot.”
“Why?”
“So he wouldn't delete my movie.”
It was such a seven-year-old reason that Sarah almost laughed.
Instead, tears filled her eyes.
Emma had preserved evidence without understanding what it was.
“What did they say on the recording?” Ortiz asked.
“I don't know. I didn't watch it.”
“But Wade thinks it's his financial files?”
“Maybe.”
Sarah frowned.
“How could he mistake a child's memory stick for his?”
Daniel answered.
“He uses encrypted red drives.”
Emma had picked up one of Wade's drives from the bed.
At some point during the confusion, she had also removed the red storage stick from her camera.
Two nearly identical drives.
Emma had hidden one in Linda's boot.
“What happened to the other?” Ortiz asked.
Emma thought.
“I put it in my pocket.”
Sarah's breath caught.
“Which one?”
“I don't know.”
The clothes Emma had been wearing when she escaped were already in evidence.
Ortiz immediately called the lab.
No USB drive had been found in the pockets.
“Then someone removed it.”
Probably Linda.
Or Wade.
But which drive did Linda currently have?
The financial records?
Or Emma's video?
Emma closed her eyes.
“I think Grandma watched mine.”
“When?”
“At the cabin.”
Emma remembered Linda sitting alone beside a laptop while Wade went outside to make a phone call.
Linda inserted the red drive.
A video played.
Emma heard her own voice.
Then Linda's.
Then Wade saying Daniel's name.
“Grandma looked scared.”
“What did she do?”
“She copied something.”
“Onto what?”
“I don't know.”
“Then?”
“She put the red thing in her pocket.”
When Wade returned, Linda gave him a different drive.
Sarah looked at Ortiz.
“She switched them.”
“Sounds like it.”
That meant Linda may have been carrying Emma's video while Wade possessed the financial files.
Or the reverse.
“What happened after the cabin?” Sarah asked.
Emma's face tightened.
She had been given medicine mixed into juice.
She woke inside a vehicle.
It was dark.
Rain had started.
Linda and Wade were arguing.
Emma lay on the floor behind the front seats beneath a blanket.
“Grandma said we couldn't keep doing this.”
“What did Wade say?”
“He said it was too late.”
“Did he say what they were going to do with you?”
Emma nodded.
Sarah almost didn't want to hear.
“He said they should leave me somewhere and make it look like someone else took me.”
Daniel's fists tightened.
“What did Linda say?”
“She said no.”
For a moment Sarah looked at her daughter.
“Grandma defended you?”
Emma nodded.
“At first.”
Wade reminded Linda that her fingerprints were in the cabin.
That neighbors had seen Emma entering her room.
That the video could destroy them both.
Then he said something Emma remembered because it frightened her.
“He said, ‘If she goes home, you go to prison before I do.’”
“What did Grandma say?”
“Nothing.”
They drove for a long time.
At some point Wade stopped the SUV near the Miller neighborhood.
Emma woke again.
Rain hammered the roof.
Wade walked outside.
Linda stayed in the passenger seat.
Emma whispered, “Grandma?”
Linda turned around.
Emma begged her.
“Please take me home.”
Sarah's throat tightened.
“What did Linda do?”
“She cried.”
Sarah waited.
“She said she was sorry.”
“What happened next?”
“Mr. Bennett came back with a shovel.”
Silence filled the hospital room.
Daniel turned away.
Emma's breathing became shallow.
Sarah immediately held her.
“You don't have to continue.”
“I remember.”
The SUV drove behind a line of trees near the Miller property, using an unfinished access road from a neighboring construction lot.
Wade carried Emma through the rain.
Linda followed.
Emma was too drugged to fight.
A shallow drainage depression already existed beside the lawn.
Wade dug into the softened dirt.
Not deep.
Just enough.
“He put me down.”
Sarah couldn't breathe.
“Where was Grandma?”
“Watching.”
“Did she help him?”
Emma began to cry.
“Yes.”
The word destroyed whatever small possibility remained that Linda had only been a frightened accomplice.
“What did she do?”
“She put dirt on me.”
Daniel made a broken sound.
Emma whispered, “I asked her not to.”
Sarah buried her face against her daughter's forehead.
“What did Grandma say?”
Emma remembered.
Every word.
“Go to sleep, sweetheart. It'll be over soon.”
And then, beneath the mud and rain, Emma heard Wade say something that had never made sense to her.
“She'll think Linda did all of it.”
Sarah looked up.
“Who will?”
Emma shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Ortiz's expression changed.
There was another person in the plan.
Someone Wade expected to deceive.
Before anyone could ask more, Sarah's red phone rang.
Unknown number.
Ortiz motioned for her to answer on speaker.
Sarah did.
A man's voice spoke.
“Sarah?”
She recognized him from television interviews and charity videos.
Wade Bennett.
“You want Linda?” he asked.
Sarah's entire body tightened.
“Where is she?”
“Safe.”
“You tried to kill my daughter.”
A pause.
Then Wade laughed softly.
“You still don't understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Linda wasn't protecting me.”
Sarah stared at Daniel.
Wade continued.
May you like
“I was protecting her.”
The call ended.
Related Stories
