"She was going to use today as the final piece." Gerald reached into his coat again and produced a business card.
"Which means the footage Noah found may have just changed the timeline considerably."
He held the card out to Claire.
"I need to see that footage," he said.
"All of it.
The hallway recording and whatever is on the camera account Marcus set up in Lily's room." He glanced at Lily, who was carefully separating the frosting from the cake with the edge of her fork.
"And I need to know where Marcus is.
Because if we cannot produce him, Evelyn's attorney will argue that his absence alone is sufficient grounds."
Claire looked at the card.
Then she looked at the small card from Marcus's envelope, still in her hand.
The email address.
The password.
She pulled out her phone.
"Then let's start with the forty-two clips," she said.
She opened the browser, typed in the address, and logged in.
The account loaded.
A grid of video thumbnails filled the screen.
Lily's bedroom.
The small white camera in the corner of the ceiling.
Timestamps going back eleven weeks.
Claire tapped the most recent clip.
The footage was from four days ago.
3:14 in the morning.
The room was dark except for the pale glow of Lily's nightlight.
Evelyn was standing at the foot of Lily's bed.
She was holding Lily's stuffed rabbit by one ear.
She set it down on the floor, just out of reach of the bed.
Then she stood there for a long moment, watching the sleeping child.
Then she leaned down and said something.
Too quiet for the microphone to catch fully.
But the last word was clear.
*Behave.*
Lily stirred in her sleep.
Reached for the rabbit.
Found nothing.
Her small hand moved across the empty space and then she pulled it back and curled tighter.
Evelyn watched for another moment.
Then she left.
Claire stopped the video.
Nobody in the car said anything.
Then Lily looked up from her cake.
She had heard the audio.
She recognized the room.
She looked at Claire's phone screen and then looked away again, back at the napkin in her lap.
"She does that a lot," Lily said quietly.
"I thought it was a dream."
Gerald made three calls from the parking area while Claire went through more clips on her phone.
Noah sat on the low stone wall with Lily, showing her something on his own phone β a video of a dog learning to skateboard, from the sound of it.
Lily laughed once, a small surprised sound, and Noah looked over at Claire with something close to relief on his face.
Claire didn't stop scrolling.
Clip after clip.
Evelyn in the room at night, sometimes just standing.
Amanda once, going through the small bookshelf beside Lily's bed, removing a drawing Lily had made and folding it into her pocket.
Marcus, twice β both times in the daytime, sitting on the edge of the bed talking to Lily, his posture open and calm, Lily leaning against him.
In one clip he was reading to her.
In the other he was listening to her talk about something at school, nodding, asking questions.
There was nothing in any clip that resembled what Evelyn's falsified documents described.
Gerald ended his last call and came to stand beside her.
"My colleague is filing an emergency motion to delay any guardianship petition.
We have until tomorrow morning." He looked at the phone.
"Is it enough?"
"It's forty-two clips," Claire said.
"Eleven weeks.
Evelyn in that room at night at least a dozen times." She handed him the phone.
"And not one clip showing Marcus being anything other than a good father."
Gerald scrolled in silence for a moment.
Then he handed the phone back.
"I need copies of all of it.
Transferred to a secure server tonight."
"I can do that," Noah said from the wall.
He had heard.
"I work in IT.
Give me an hour."
Gerald nodded.
Then his own phone rang.
He looked at the screen and his jaw tightened slightly.
He answered it.
"Gerald Foss." A pause.
"Yes, I'm aware." Another pause, longer.
"I'll be there."
He ended the call and looked at Claire.
"That was Evelyn's attorney," he said.
"She's filed.
Not tomorrow.
Twenty minutes ago." He put the phone in his pocket.
"She moved the timeline up."
Claire felt the ground shift slightly beneath her.
"Can your motion still stop it?"
"It can delay the hearing.
It cannot stop the filing." Gerald looked toward the house.
"She'll have been told by now that we're out here.
She knows something changed." He looked back at Claire.
"She's going to come out."
He was right.
The front door of the house opened two minutes later.
Evelyn walked out alone, without Amanda, without a coat despite the cold.
She walked across the stone path with the particular steadiness of someone who has decided exactly what they are going to say.
She stopped six feet away.
"Gerald." She looked at him without surprise.
"I should have known Marcus would run to you."
"He came to me with legitimate concerns," Gerald said.
"As is his right."
"His right." Evelyn's gaze moved to Claire.
"And you.
Still here.
Still inserting yourself into a family matter that has nothing to do with you."
"Lily has everything to do with me," Claire said.
"Lily is my granddaughter." Evelyn's voice was very controlled.
"And her father has abandoned her.
I am the only stable adult in her life."
"You've been going into her room at night," Claire said.
"We have it on camera.
Twelve times in eleven weeks."
Something flickered in Evelyn's eyes.
Fast.
Gone.
"I check on my granddaughter," she said.
"That is not a crjme."