Deleted

The camera company's support line confirmed within the hour what the activity log had already told us — three manual deletions, all authenticated logins from Colette's registered device, all clips permanently removed from the archive with no way to recover them.

"I should have caught this sooner," I told Trevor, and meant it more than he probably realized. "I only ever checked in the mornings you were traveling because that was when I worried. I never thought to check the mornings you were home, because I assumed you'd notice if something was wrong."

"I did notice things," Trevor said quietly. "Small things. Piper getting quiet around Colette. A bruise on her arm two months ago that Colette said was from the playground. I believed her because believing the alternative felt insane."

It was almost midnight by then, both of us too wired to sleep, when I finally said the thing that had been nagging at the edge of my memory since the officer left our driveway.

"Trevor. Before she worked as a hostess at that restaurant where you two met — Colette mentioned once, in passing, that she used to nanny for a family in Ohio. Do you remember the name?"

He thought about it for a long moment, and then his face changed.

"The Castillos," he said. "She said it ended badly. She said the mother was 'unstable' and let her go over nothing."

I was already reaching for my laptop.

"I think we should hear the Castillos' version of that story ourselves," I said, "before we assume Colette's was the accurate one."