Chapter 3 - The Live Wire
I carried Lily straight up the stairs to our room, locking the door behind us. My hands were shaking so violently I could barely turn the deadbolt.
I sat Lily on the edge of the bed and cupped her face gently, tears streaming down my own cheeks as I examined the swelling on her jaw. "I'm so sorry, sweetie. I am so, so sorry. Mommy's got you. Nobody is ever going to hurt you again. Ever."
"Why does Uncle Derek hate me?" she whimpered, clutching her torn butterfly drawing to her chest. "I was just drawing birds."
"He doesn't hate you because of anything you did, baby," I said, my voice dropping into a hard, icy register. "He hates us because he’s a coward. But Mommy is going to fix this."
I pulled out my phone, snapped three clear, high-resolution photographs of the deep red welt on Lily’s face, and saved them to three separate cloud drives. Then I grabbed my purse, wrapped Lily in a soft blanket, and unlocked the door.
I was heading for the front stairs when Uncle Paul stepped out of the second-floor study. His face was completely drained of color. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.
"Audrey," he whispered urgently, grabbing my arm and pulling me into the study, shutting the door behind us.
"Paul, let me go," I said, my voice razor-sharp. "I am leaving. I am going to the hospital to get her face documented, and then I am going straight to the police station."
"I know," Paul said, his breath hitching. "You need to see this first."
He pointed toward his editing console on the mahogany desk. A pair of professional monitor headphones rested beside a laptop screen displaying a complex audio-mixing software with multiple glowing green and red soundwaves.
"When your dad hired me to film this 'Thompson Legacy' documentary," Paul said nervously, "he demanded that I install a state-of-the-art wireless mic system throughout the main floor so we wouldn't miss any 'spontaneous family brilliance.' The mics are top-tier broadcast quality. Uncompressed audio. Direct to hard drive."
Paul reached over and hit spacebar on his keyboard.
The speakers instantly filled the room with crisp, terrifyingly clear sound.
The sound of Lily’s soft humming. Derek’s harsh yell: "I said shut it!" Lily’s innocent voice: "It's my sunshine song!" The sickening, violent THWACK of the slap. Lily’s agonizing sob. Howard’s voice: "Well, she needed to learn some shame anyway." My mother’s laugh. Derek’s booming taunt: "Like mother, like daughter. Both are useless."
Hearing it played back made my skin turn to ice, but a terrifying sense of power surged through my veins.
"It captured everything," I breathed.
"Not just audio," Paul said, clicking a window open. "The main camera on the tripod by the bay window was running a test sweep. It caught the physical assault on high-definition 4K video. Every single second of it."
I looked at my uncle. "Will you give me those files, Paul?"
Paul hesitated for half a second. He was married to my mother's sister; he knew the terrifying financial and social power Howard Thompson wielded. But then he looked at little Lily wrapped in her blanket, her face swollen, and his eyes hardened.
"Howard hired me to document the truth of the Thompson family," Paul said quietly. "I'm just doing my job."
He pulled a fresh thumb drive from his desk, transferred the raw, unedited audio and video files onto it, and handed it to me.
"There's one more thing you should know," Paul added, his voice trembling slightly. "The audio feed from the house wasn't just recording. Your dad set up a live Wi-Fi link so his PR team in Chicago could monitor the ambient audio for their press releases about his upcoming corporate lifetime achievement award."
I stared at him. "Meaning?"
"Meaning," Paul whispered, "your father's executive vice president, his head of public relations, and three senior board members were listening to the live audio feed from the lakehouse when Derek hit your daughter."
A slow, terrible smile touched my lips.
"They heard everything," I said.
"Every word," Paul confirmed.
I took the thumb drive, tucked it safely into my brassiere, and held Lily tight. "Thank you, Paul."
I walked down the grand staircase. My family was still gathered in the living room, drinking mimosas like nothing had happened.
Howard looked up as I reached the foyer. "Where do you think you're going?"
"I'm taking my daughter away from this house," I said flatly.
Derek scoffed from the couch. "Oh, don't be so dramatic, Audrey. You're always making scenes. Sit down and eat breakfast."
I stopped at the front door and looked back at my father, my mother, and my brother.
May you like
"Enjoy your breakfast," I said quietly. "Because it's the last peaceful meal you will ever eat as a family."
Before Howard could shout at me to get back inside, I walked out into the bright morning air, locked Lily safely in her car seat, and drove straight down the mountain toward the county sheriff's office.
