Chapter 3 - The Perfect Father
Grant Carter stepped onto the porch with both hands raised.
He had changed his expression.
The rage was gone, replaced by confusion and concern.
“Officers, thank goodness,” he said. “My daughter is having an episode.”
Sarah kept Lily behind her.
James and the other officers positioned themselves between Grant and the child.
Grant pointed toward Lily.
“She has nightmares. She gets confused. Her mother abandoned her, and she has never recovered.”
Lily trembled beneath Sarah’s jacket.
“That’s not true,” she whispered.
Grant raised his voice.
“She belongs with me.”
“Stay where you are,” James warned.
Grant took another step.
Two officers immediately moved forward.
Sarah watched the upstairs windows.
She had seen movement when they arrived, but every room was now dark except the hallway.
“Is anyone else inside?” she asked.
Grant hesitated.
“No.”
Lily looked up sharply.
Sarah noticed.
Grant continued speaking.
“I’m a single father. I’m doing my best. Ask anyone on this street.”
Several neighbors had come outside despite the rain. They watched from porches and windows.
One of them, Mrs. Delgado, approached beneath a red umbrella.
“He always seemed devoted to that girl,” she said quietly. “He volunteered at the neighborhood cleanup last month.”
Grant heard her.
“Exactly. They all know me.”
But another neighbor, Mr. Brooks, stepped closer.
“I heard shouting from that house several nights this week.”
Grant turned toward him.
“You have no idea what you heard.”
Sarah asked Lily whether she needed medical attention.
The girl shook her head.
“I just want to leave.”
Grant laughed bitterly.
“This is unbelievable. You’re taking the word of a frightened child over her father?”
Sarah’s voice remained steady.
“We are responding to an emergency call. We will determine what happened.”
Lily suddenly reached into the pocket of Sarah’s jacket.
“The phone.”
“What phone?”
“My mom’s phone. I dropped it near the porch.”
An officer found the device in the grass.
The screen was cracked, but it still worked.
When Sarah handed it back, Lily opened a folder containing more than twenty audio files.
Grant’s face changed.
“Give me that.”
James blocked him.
Lily held the phone against her chest.
“I recorded what he did.”
Grant lunged forward.
The officers caught him before he crossed the walkway.
He shouted that the recordings were private, that Lily did not understand them, and that the police were destroying his family.
Sarah took the phone.
The newest recording had been made twenty-three minutes earlier.
She pressed play.
Grant’s voice came through first.
Then Evelyn’s.
Sarah lifted her eyes toward the dark house.
Dispatch spoke over her radio.
May you like
“Officer, the father wasn’t acting alone.”
The upstairs curtain moved.
