Chapter 7 - The House Built to Destroy Me
The police would not let me visit the farmhouse.
That was probably fortunate.
I was not sure what I would have done if I had seen the room myself.
Photographs were enough.
Lena obtained them through investigators the following day.
A gray couch similar to mine.
A cheap rug nearly identical to the one in my living room.
Children’s toys arranged to mimic Juniper’s.
A window frame built against a blank interior wall.
Lighting equipment positioned outside it.
A tripod.
Audio equipment.
Several sweatshirts and jackets matching clothes I owned.
And on one table, a binder.
Its label read CALEB PROJECT.
Grant stared at the photograph.
“They named it.”
I said nothing.
Lena turned another page.
Police had recovered fourteen staged recordings.
Not one.
Fourteen.
Some showed Evan pretending to drink heavily.
Some showed him asleep while a child-shaped mannequin sat unattended.
One showed him striking a wall.
One showed him carrying what appeared to be prescription medication.
One showed a silhouette yelling while prerecorded audio of Juniper crying played.
“They were creating an archive,” Lena said.
“For court.”
“Yes.”
“Why fourteen?”
“So they could choose what fit whatever narrative became necessary.”
I looked at the dates.
Most were filmed over the previous six months.
Then I reached the first one.
September 12.
Two years earlier.
It showed Evan walking through the fake living-room set.
He wore one of my old blue shirts.
No child appeared.
No audio.
Just a camera test.
I looked at Lena.
“They started before Elise died.”
“That appears to be the case.”
“So this wasn’t about me failing after losing her.”
“No.”
“It was already happening.”
“Yes.”
My stomach turned.
“What were they planning while she was alive?”
Lena did not guess.
Neither did I.
We waited for Willa’s statement.
She had been taken to the farmhouse by Evan after Orson discovered her inside his study.
According to Willa, Orson had blocked the door.
He demanded her phone.
She refused.
Then Evan arrived.
Orson told him to “take her somewhere quiet until she understood.”
Willa believed they intended to frighten her.
At the farmhouse, she was locked in a bedroom.
She escaped through a bathroom window shortly before police arrived.
Evan saw her and dragged her back inside.
Officers arrived during the struggle.
That explained why Evan fled.
Orson denied everything.
He claimed Willa had gone voluntarily.
He claimed the farmhouse equipment belonged to Evan.
He claimed he had never seen the staged room.
Police discovered his fingerprints throughout it.
Still, Orson kept talking.
That was his gift.
He could stare at a fact and behave as though confidence could erase it.
Tabitha changed tactics.
She issued a statement through her attorney.
She claimed Orson had manipulated her.
She admitted withholding Juniper’s inhaler.
My vision went blurry when Lena read that part.
But Tabitha insisted she had not intended serious harm.
She said Orson told her Juniper’s breathing needed to appear worse so they could demonstrate my alleged negligence.
Her defense made no sense.
I had not been there.
How would Juniper having an asthma episode at Orson’s house prove I was negligent?
Unless the plan required me to return during it.
Milk.
The unnecessary grocery trip.
The timing.
Tabitha expected me to walk in.
Then what?
Lose my temper?
Panic?
Maybe strike someone?
I had.
I had given them exactly what they wanted.
Except Willa had recorded what came before.
Without Willa, Tabitha would have had Juniper wheezing, me hitting her, and Orson telling police I had become violent.
The entire event had been designed like a trap.
I realized something else.
“They wanted an ambulance.”
Lena looked at me.
“What?”
“They wanted Juniper to get bad enough that an ambulance was called.”
“That would create medical documentation.”
“Yes.”
“And witnesses.”
“Yes.”
“Then Caleb arrives angry.”
“Yes.”
Lena’s expression hardened.
“Your reaction becomes the story.”
Exactly.
I hated how close it had come to working.
A knock sounded at my door.
Grant checked the camera first.
Detective Alvarez.
I let him in.
He carried a sealed evidence photograph.
“There’s something from the farmhouse you need to identify.”
He placed the image on my table.
A woman’s leather journal.
Dark green.
Gold clasp.
My breath stopped.
“Elise.”
“You recognize it?”
“She wrote in that every night.”
“What happened to it after she died?”
“I thought it was lost.”
“Who packed her personal belongings?”
My answer came slowly.
“Tabitha.”
Alvarez nodded.
“The journal was found in the farmhouse safe.”
I sat down.
“Have you read it?”
“We obtained authorization to review relevant portions.”
“What does it say?”
He hesitated.
“Your wife was afraid of your father.”
I closed my eyes.
I had known she disliked him.
I had not known fear.
Alvarez continued.
“She believed he was trying to gain control over her trust.”
“That part I knew.”
“She also believed someone had accessed her medical information.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“Two weeks before her death.”
My pulse accelerated.
“Why?”
“She doesn’t know.”
Alvarez opened a copy of one entry.
He could not give me the original yet.
He read only what was relevant.
“Orson asked questions today that he should not know to ask.”
My skin prickled.
“What questions?”
Alvarez looked at me.
“About her aneurysm.”
I stared at him.
“She didn’t know she had one.”
“According to the journal, she had undergone imaging after severe headaches.”
I felt as though someone had opened the floor beneath me.
“She told me the scan was normal.”
“It wasn’t.”
“What are you saying?”
“The journal says doctors found an unruptured aneurysm.”
My heart hammered.
“Why didn’t I know?”
“She wrote that she wanted a second opinion before frightening you.”
I could barely hear him.
Then Alvarez said the sentence that changed the entire investigation.
“Your wife also wrote that her medical report disappeared from her home office.”
I looked toward the photograph of her journal.
“Who took it?”
“We don’t know.”
“Was it Dad?”
“We don’t know.”
“What does this have to do with her death?”
“We don’t know.”
He leaned closer.
“But we found something else in Orson’s locked file cabinet.”
A photocopy.
Elise’s missing scan report.
Across the top, in Orson’s handwriting, were six words.
May you like
HOW LONG BEFORE THIS BECOMES USEFUL?
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