Chapter 7

Dale was at work. Owen was at school. I sat at the kitchen table with the tablet plugged into the charger and my hands sweating despite the cold. The passcode was Owen’s birthday. It opened like the house had never expected anyone to try.

Forty-one files. All labeled quiet time.

Most were nothing. A seven-year-old singing the same three lines of a song. The sound of the TV in the other room. Owen whispering to his stuffed raccoon. I watched them all. My chest hurt by the tenth. By the twentieth, I had to stop and walk outside and stand in the cold until I could breathe.

File twenty-nine was different.

Ellis’s voice, close to the tablet, calm and patient. “Say it again. Say ‘Daddy hurts me sometimes.’ Look at the camera when you say it.”

Owen’s voice, small and shaking. “Daddy hurts me sometimes.”

“Again.”

“Daddy hurts me sometimes.”

“Good. Now look sad.”

The file was timestamped 3:22 p.m. on Sunday, January 11. Twelve minutes before I walked up the driveway. Twenty-four minutes before I shoved Ellis Ward.

File thirty-two was worse. It was me. Last spring, before the divorce was final. My voice through a door, hard and tired: “I said get in the truck, Owen.” Then Owen, crying. “Please don’t be angry, Daddy.”

I listened to it twice. The second time, I heard what Ellis had heard. He had proof I could yell. He had proof my son was afraid of my anger. He had built a frame around the worst ten minutes of my life and called it a case study.

I copied the two files onto Dale’s laptop. Then I copied all forty-one. I did not know yet who I could give them to. Ms. Petrie had subpoena power, but I had stolen nothing. The tablet was Owen’s. He had brought it home in his backpack because I always grabbed the backpack. If I handed it over, I had to admit I had gone through my son’s private recordings. I had to admit I had heard my own voice in them.

That afternoon, I drove to the feed-mill lot. I don’t know why. Maybe because Ellis’s truck was there. Maybe because I wanted him to see me not doing anything.

He came out of the office with his phone already recording. I kept my hands in my pockets.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said.

“I know.”

“There’s a no-contact order.”

“I’m not talking to Owen. I’m talking to you.”

Ellis smiled. It was the smile from the channel. “You’re making this worse.”

“You had him on that step for six minutes before I got there,” I said. “You were feeding him lines twelve minutes before that.”

His smile flickered. Just once. The phone stayed up.

“You think this is about you?” he said. “You were never the father. You were the before picture. Owen is the after.”

I didn’t move. I didn’t raise my voice. In the van behind me, Owen was in the back seat with Dale, waiting. He had heard enough already. I saw him through the windshield, watching.

“You’re recording this,” I said. “Good.”

Ellis stepped closer. His voice stayed calm, but his hand tightened on the phone. “You think a judge cares about a tablet? You think anybody believes a man who can’t keep his hands off people?”

“I think you just said ‘before picture’ on your own tape.”

He stopped. His eyes went flat. He knew. I saw him know.

I walked back to the van. On the drive home, Owen asked from the back seat, quiet, “Is Ellis going to film me again?”

I looked at him in the rearview mirror. “No,” I said. “Not if I can help it.”

He nodded. He didn’t ask anything else. He just held his backpack in his lap like it was a shield.