Chapter 11 - THE BACKPACK
The backpack was pink with a silver unicorn zipper.
Inside were crayons, a half-finished math worksheet, two library books, and a cheap digital voice recorder Chloe used for a school project about "sounds in my neighborhood."
Dad had forgotten the recorder was there.
Chloe had forgotten too.
Police did not.
The apartment break-in happened while Dad was at rehab with me and Chloe was at school.
Julian's GPS monitor placed him six miles away at his attorney's office.
Two nights before my crash, Chloe had carried it into the garage to record the sound of rain hitting the roof.
The device kept recording for almost forty minutes.
But Chloe's teacher had instructed students to upload their audio files to the school portal.
Then the prosecutor.
Then they asked me to listen with Evelyn present.
Chloe humming.
A garage door opening.
Then Julian's voice.
"Why are you here?"
Chloe answered from farther away.
"My rain project."
"Go inside."
"You're sure about this?"
Julian answered, quieter.
"Just do what I paid you to do."
Then clearly: "If she hits traffic before it drains, that's on you."
Evelyn reached for the pause button.
"Do you want to continue?"
"Yes."
Julian said, "She always takes the lake route on Thursdays."
Then the recording ended.
"Who is the second man?" I asked.
"We're enhancing the audio," Ortiz said. "We also think the break-in was an attempt to recover the recorder because Julian realized Chloe had used it that week."
"How would he know?"
"Her supervised visit. He asked her what was in the backpack before staff interrupted. It's in the center notes."
The man had tried to use his daughter to clean up his murder plan.
Within hours, the prosecutor moved to revoke Julian's bond.
His attorney argued there was no evidence connecting him to the break-in.
Then police identified the maintenance-jacket suspect.
The same investigator who had been photographing Dad outside rehab.
He said Julian paid him through an intermediary to retrieve "a recording device belonging to the family."
The intermediary was Dr. Mallory.
By evening, Julian was back in custody.
Mallory was arrested on obstruction and conspiracy-related charges.
The second voice on the garage recording was identified the next day.
Eric Baines, the mobile mechanic.
But Eric had told police he refused to help Julian.
He insisted Julian told him the goal was to create a minor failure that would force the car into the shop and support an insurance claim.
"He said nobody would get hurt," Eric told investigators.
But he had also said on the recording, If she hits traffic before it drains, that's on you.
The prosecutor finally filed the charge I had been afraid to name.
When Evelyn told me, I did not cheer.
I looked at Chloe coloring beside my bed and thought about the word attempted.
Then Chloe held up her picture.
There was no Julian.
Because in the bottom corner, Chloe had drawn a fourth figure far away under a gray cloud.
"Who's that?" I asked.
She looked at the page.
"Daddy."
"Why is he over there?"
May you like
Chloe pressed the crayon down until it almost snapped.
"Because I still love him, but I don't want him close."
