Chapter 4 - The Digital Evidence
While my mother and Sabrina retreated to the cafeteria to spin their narrative to whichever relatives would listen, I sat in the quiet corner of Harper’s hospital room, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest as she slept off the effects of the sedative.
My phone vibrated against the bedside table.
It was an alert from my home security app.
Motion detected: Kitchen.
I unlocked the screen with shaking fingers and tapped the live camera feed.
The high-definition fisheye lens mounted in the corner of our kitchen ceiling showed an empty room bathed in the soft glow of the under-cabinet lights. The silver beverage dispenser still sat proudly on the island, surrounded by a few stray pink paper napkins.
Then, the back door clicked open.
A figure slipped into the frame.
Preston Holloway.
Sabrina’s husband moved with frantic stealth. He didn't turn on the overhead lights. Instead, he pulled a small flashlight from his jacket pocket, hurried directly to the kitchen island, and reached out toward the silver spigot of the lemonade dispenser.
My heart hammered against my ribs.
He was going to empty it. He was going to wash it out and destroy the evidence before the police warrant could be executed.
I watched through the screen as Preston grabbed the handle of the heavy glass dispenser, lifting it off the marble counter—
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The front door security chime sounded through the audio feed.
Preston froze like a deer caught in headlights. He dropped the heavy dispenser back onto the counter with a loud, clattering thud that made me wince.
The door opened further, and my mother’s voice called out from the hallway. “Preston? Are you in here? Sabrina sent you back to check on the house?”
“Yeah!” Preston’s voice echoed through the camera mic, high-pitched and breathless. “I just... I forgot my car keys on the counter!”
“Well, hurry up,” my mother snapped. “Sabrina is working on the family. We need to get our story straight before Nolan and Camille get back from the ICU.”
The feed went quiet as they hurried out together.
I let out a long, shaky breath, my thumb quickly pressing the record button on the app. I exported the last twenty-four hours of high-definition security footage directly to my encrypted cloud drive, securing every second of video evidence from every angle of the house—including the exact moment two hours earlier when Sabrina had stood alone by the beverage dispenser, pulled a small amber glass dropper from her designer handbag, and squeezed its contents directly into the pink lemonade while laughing on the phone.
The cloud upload completed with a quiet chime.
May you like
Got you, I thought, my hands gripping the edge of the phone until my knuckles turned white.
You wanted to ruin me, Sabrina? Let’s see how you handle a federal-grade investigation.
