Chapter 5 - The Tapes of Evil
In the quiet administrative room of the precinct’s Special Victims Unit, four hours later, the room was dark except for the blue glow of a large desktop monitor.
Detective Reed sat at the keyboard. Beside him sat Prosecutor Sarah Jenkins, a sharp-faced state attorney known for her unyielding prosecution of domestic abuse cases. I stood against the back wall, my arms crossed over my chest, watching the playback of my own living room.
The camera timestamp read: DECEMBER 28 - 2:14 PM.
On the high-definition color screen, my mother, Linda, sat on our velvet sofa, holding a glass of iced tea. Ashley was sitting beside her, scrolling on her laptop.
“Did you finish submitting the inventory release forms for the Mansfield depot?” Linda’s recorded voice echoed clearly through the monitor speakers.
“Done,” Ashley replied on the tape, sipping a hard seltzer. “I used Ethan’s digital signature token from his drive. The system triggered an automatic fraud flag to his manager twenty minutes ago. Ethan’s probably already on I-71 heading north.”
Linda let out a soft, satisfied laugh. “Good. That gives us at least four days before he figures out the paperwork was fake. Make sure you transfer the ten grand from his savings to your account before midnight.”
“What about his golden girl in the bedroom?” Ashley asked, tossing her hair back. “She’s screaming for water again.”
Linda leaned back, taking a slow sip of her drink. “Let her scream. She thinks because she had his kid she’s the queen of this family now. I raised Ethan for thirty years. No little nobody from the suburbs is going to take my boy away from me and spend his money. Leave the thermostat at 58. It’ll teach her some humility.”
Prosecutor Jenkins slammed her hand onto the desk, pausing the video on Linda’s cold, smiling face.
“My God,” Prosecutor Jenkins breathed, looking up at Detective Reed. “This isn't just neglect. This is premeditated conspiracy, grand larceny, identity fraud, and attempted murder by deprivation.”
“Keep watching,” I said, my voice empty of all emotion. “Look at December 30th.”
Detective Reed fast-forwarded the timeline to the evening of December 30th.
On the screen, my wife, Emily, could be seen crawling on her hands and knees out of the hallway, clutching her blood-stained nightgown against her abdomen. Her face was gray, her body trembling violently from fever.
“Please…” Emily’s recorded voice gasped from the speakers. “Ashley… please, the baby… he hasn't wet a diaper in two days… please give me my phone…”
Ashley walked into the frame holding a pair of shopping bags from an expensive clothing store.
She looked down at Emily on the floor.
Without saying a word, Ashley took her foot and shoved Emily’s arm away, causing my feverish wife to collapse face-first onto the rug.
Then, Ashley picked up the nursery door key, locked the door, and walked back into the kitchen, humming a song.
Prosecutor Jenkins turned away from the screen, her eyes flashing with intense legal fury.
“That’s enough,” Jenkins said, standing up and smoothing her jacket. “I have more than enough for a judge to issue a no-bail warrant.”
May you like
She looked directly at me.
“Mr. Miller, your mother and sister thought they could destroy your wife and child to keep control over you and your finances. Instead, they just recorded their own life sentences.”
