Chapter 7 - The Woman Across the Street Had Been WatchingThe anonymous messages stopped after the photograph.
James spent the night at a hotel near the hospital because he refused to take Emily back to the house while Linda and the others remained there.
Rex came with them.
The hotel normally charged a pet fee.
The manager waived it after seeing Emily kneel in the lobby and wrap both arms around the dog.
That night, Emily slept with the lights on.
James did not sleep at all.
Every time she moved, he looked over.
Every time she sighed, guilt pressed down on his chest.
He had trusted Linda because she was family.
That word felt poisonous now.
At 6:12 the next morning, someone knocked.
James opened the door.
An elderly woman stood outside.
He recognized her immediately.
“Mrs. Brooks?”
Margaret Brooks had lived across the street from James for almost fifteen years.
She was seventy-two, sharp-eyed, and notorious for knowing everything that happened on their block before anyone else.
She looked at him.
Then at Emily asleep on the bed.
Her face crumpled.
“Oh, honey.”
James stepped into the hallway.
“Were you texting me?”
She nodded.
“Why anonymously?”
“Because Linda watches everything.”
James frowned.
Mrs. Brooks held up her phone.
“She installed cameras facing the driveway. She checks who comes and goes.”
“Why?”
“I think she was scared somebody would tell you.”
James stared at her.
“Tell me what?”
Mrs. Brooks’s eyes filled with shame.
“I should have called someone sooner.”
James’s stomach tightened.
“How much did you see?”
“Enough.”
She had seen Emily stop attending the school bus.
She had seen her doing yard work.
She had once watched Linda make Emily scrub patio stones in the rain.
Mrs. Brooks confronted her.
Linda claimed Emily was “learning responsibility.”
“I believed her longer than I should have,” Mrs. Brooks whispered.
James said nothing.
“One night, I heard Emily crying.”
“When?”
“March.”
James’s hands tightened.
“I went over. Roy told me she was having a tantrum.”
Mrs. Brooks looked toward the hotel room.
“The next morning, I saw the kennel.”
James closed his eyes.
“Why didn’t you call police?”
“I almost did.”
“Almost?”
Mrs. Brooks flinched.
James immediately regretted his tone.
She continued.
“Linda showed me paperwork saying she had guardianship. Then she told me Emily had severe behavioral problems and sometimes tried to run away.”
James felt sick.
“She said you had authorized strict supervision.”
“Of course she did.”
“I still should have pushed harder.”
“Yes,” James said quietly.
Mrs. Brooks nodded.
“I know.”
Then she lifted her phone.
“That’s why I started recording.”
James looked at her.
“What?”
“My doorbell camera catches part of your driveway. My upstairs camera catches the side yard.”
His heartbeat accelerated.
“How much?”
“Months.”
James stared.
“I saved everything that looked wrong.”
Mrs. Brooks opened a folder.
Emily carrying trash bags.
Emily dragging a laundry basket nearly as large as she was.
Emily sitting alone on the back steps while adults ate at an outdoor table.
Linda yelling at her.
Roy pointing toward the basement door.
Then a video from six days ago.
James pressed play.
Linda stood near the driveway talking to a man in a suit.
The audio was faint but audible.
“…once he signs, it won’t matter.”
The man said something James couldn’t hear.
Linda replied:
“He won’t sign willingly.”
James replayed it.
His pulse pounded.
Mrs. Brooks swiped to another clip.
This one had been filmed through her upstairs window.
Linda and Roy stood in the backyard.
The kennel was visible.
No Emily.
Linda said, “If he comes back acting crazy, we call the police immediately.”
Roy asked, “And if Emily talks?”
Linda’s response was clear.
“Who are they going to believe? An eight-year-old problem child or four adults?”
James stopped the video.
His hands were shaking.
Mrs. Brooks touched his arm.
“There’s more.”
“How much more?”
“One clip I didn’t understand until yesterday.”
She opened it.
Two weeks earlier.
Caleb carried several boxes from the house into his truck late at night.
One box split open.
Papers spilled onto the driveway.
Caleb cursed and began gathering them.
Mrs. Brooks zoomed in.
James could make out a logo.
A bank.
Then something else.
An old photograph slipped onto the pavement.
James leaned closer.
He knew the picture.
Sarah.
His late wife.
Standing beside James on the day they bought the house.
On the back of that photograph was writing.
Mrs. Brooks had zoomed in as Caleb picked it up.
Three words were visible.
James recognized Sarah’s handwriting.
FOR EMILY ONLY.
James stopped breathing.
“What was that?”
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Brooks said.
But James suddenly remembered.
After Sarah died, she had left several sealed instructions with their attorney.
James had been too devastated to study every detail.
Their lawyer had told him the important matters were handled.
James looked at Mrs. Brooks.
“Do you know where Caleb took those boxes?”
She nodded.
“A storage facility off Highway Nine.”
James stared.
Linda had not only taken his money.
May you like
She had been searching Sarah’s documents.
And whatever she found had scared her enough to move it out of the house.
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