Chapter 5 - The Investigator at the Door
Ava stepped into the rain before her car had fully stopped.
Wind pulled at her coat as she ran toward the porch. The automatic door her father had installed was gone, replaced by a heavy wooden entrance with two locks.
She found the first lock open.
The second had been fastened from inside.
Ava struck the door with her palm.
“Lily!”
Garrett’s voice answered.
“Everything is fine.”
Ava tried the handle again.
“Open the door.”
“She had an emotional episode.”
Ava looked through the side window.
Lily’s wheelchair was visible near the refrigerator.
Lily was not in it.
Ava stepped back and called Ruiz.
“The entrance is locked. My sister’s chair is separated from her.”
“Officers are two minutes away.”
Ava heard something move inside.
Then the lock turned.
Diane opened the door.
For one second, mother and daughter faced each other beneath the porch light.
Diane looked older than Ava remembered. Fear had drawn deep lines around her mouth.
“Ava,” she whispered, “do not make this worse.”
Ava pushed past her.
The kitchen revealed the truth before anyone spoke.
Broken dishes lay near the island. The wheelchair stood across the room. Garrett was beside the laptop, one hand still resting on its lid. Lily sat beneath the table, pale and shaking.
Ava crossed the room.
She knelt in front of her sister but did not touch her immediately.
“May I help you?”
Lily nodded.
Ava wrapped her coat around Lily’s shoulders.
“I’m here,” she said. “You are safe now.”
Garrett scoffed.
“No one has threatened her.”
Ava looked at the displaced wheelchair.
“What happened to the control system?”
“Nothing.”
“Then turn it on.”
Garrett did not move.
Ava stood.
She had questioned suspects who shouted, threatened, cried, and begged. Garrett’s method was different. He used calmness like a costume. He relied on the assumption that the person who sounded most reasonable must also be telling the truth.
Diane entered the kitchen behind Ava.
“It was only a minor scratch,” she said. “Lily did it to herself.”
Lily flinched.
Ava saw it.
She also saw the recently damaged edge of the refrigerator, the broken dishes, and a faint rectangular mark in the dust where the wheelchair had originally stood.
Most importantly, she saw the laptop.
Its screen was dark, but an external drive remained connected.
Garrett moved toward it.
Ava stepped into his path.
“Do not touch the computer.”
“This is my house.”
“No,” Lily said from the floor. “It was Dad’s house.”
Garrett stared at her.
For the first time that night, Lily did not look away.
Ava reached inside her coat and removed a small recorder she carried for field interviews.
She placed it on the counter.
May you like
“Everyone is going to remain exactly where they are,” she said.
Then red and blue lights appeared through the rain.
