Chapter 2 - THE ROOM THAT BECAME A TRAP
Eli remained unconscious through the morning.
I sat beside him with one hand around his uninjured fingers and listened to the machines breathe, count, and warn.
Detective Harris returned twice.
The first time, he collected screenshots of my calls and messages.
The second time, he brought a woman named Gloria Alvarez, my mother’s next-door neighbor.
Gloria was seventy-two, wore a Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt, and kept twisting a tissue between her fingers.
“I’m sorry,” she said before sitting down. “I should have gone over sooner.”
“Tell me what you heard.”
Gloria looked toward Eli.
“Your sister was yelling around nine. I couldn’t understand every word, but I heard her say, ‘Give it back.’ Then your mother said, ‘He’s just like Natalie. Always sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.’”
A cold pressure spread through my chest.
“Give what back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then what happened?”
“Your boy screamed for you.”
Gloria’s voice broke.
She had gone outside but found Linda near the fence. Linda told her Eli was throwing a tantrum and ordered her to mind her own business.
Almost an hour later, Gloria heard pounding from the shed.
Then silence.
“I called 911,” she whispered. “Your mother tried to stop the paramedics from entering the yard.”
Detective Harris placed a photograph on the table.
The shed door had a metal latch mounted on the outside.
“It can’t be locked from inside,” he said.
I stared at the photograph until the edges blurred.
“Why would they do this?”
Harris did not answer directly.
“We found something in the shed.”
He showed me a torn corner of a large yellow envelope. The printed words were partly smeared, but I recognized the logo.
Brooks Family Trust.
My father, Harold Brooks, had established the trust before he died three years earlier. He had left money for both daughters and a protected education account for Eli.
Linda was the temporary trustee.
For months, she had refused to provide statements.
Rachel always defended her.
“That envelope was in my father’s desk,” I said. “Eli has seen me looking through those files.”
Harris leaned forward.
“Could he read the name?”
“He can recognize Brooks and his own name.”
My stomach turned.
Eli had a habit of collecting anything that belonged to me. Receipts, business cards, even junk mail. He called them “Mom treasures.”
If he had seen an envelope with our name on it, he would have picked it up.
“Did you find the rest?”
“Not yet.”
At two that afternoon, Linda finally called me.
“How is he?” she asked.
There was no warmth in her voice.
“You tell me.”
“Natalie, this has gotten completely out of control.”
“My child is in intensive care.”
“Because he climbed onto a workbench after we told him not to.”
“You said he fell from a tree.”
Silence.
Then Linda sighed.
“Rachel was confused when the paramedics arrived.”
“You talked to the paramedics.”
“We were both upset.”
“Why was the shed locked from outside?”
Her breathing changed.
“Who told you that?”
“Why was my son inside?”
“He stole private paperwork.”
My eyes closed.
“What paperwork?”
“Adult business.”
“What paperwork, Mom?”
Rachel grabbed the phone.
“He went through my purse.”
“Why did you tell me he got what he deserved?”
“Because you’ve raised him to believe rules don’t apply to him.”
“He is six.”
“And manipulative. Just like you.”
I heard Linda telling her to stop talking.
“Rachel,” I said, “what was in the envelope?”
The call ended.
Detective Harris had been standing near the door. At my request, the conversation had been on speaker.
“That helps,” he said.
“It doesn’t tell us what they were hiding.”
“No. But this might.”
He held up a small black device sealed inside an evidence bag.
It was an old motion-activated camera.
My father had installed it in the shed years earlier to find out what was getting into his birdseed.
Linda apparently had forgotten it existed.
“The memory card is damaged,” Harris said. “Our technician is trying to recover it.”
I looked at my unconscious son.
“Find out what they did.”
May you like
Harris nodded.
“We will.”
