Chapter 4 - THE CAMERA ABOVE THE STOVE
Police searched the house.
The main security system had been disabled.
A smaller camera above the stove had not.
Emily installed it two months earlier after food began disappearing.
No one remembered it.
The video began at 10:53.
Margaret stood beside Noah’s bassinet.
Emily held the baby.
Lauren placed a pot of water on the stove.
Margaret said Noah was cold.
Emily disagreed.
The baby felt hot.
Margaret accused her of inventing symptoms.
At 11:05, Emily tried to call the pediatrician.
Lauren took the phone.
At 11:08, Margaret opened a drawer and removed two heat packs.
Emily told her to stop.
Margaret said generations of Miller women knew how to care for infants.
At 11:12, Emily tried to take Noah upstairs.
Lauren blocked the hallway.
At 11:16, Margaret placed the heat packs beneath the blanket.
Emily reached for the child.
Lauren grabbed her wrists.
The argument escalated.
Emily screamed.
Margaret slapped her.
Lauren pulled her backward.
Noah cried.
The pot boiled over.
At 11:21, Margaret opened a prescription bottle.
The medication belonged to Ethan.
A sedative prescribed after a workplace injury.
Emily fought.
Lauren held her.
Margaret forced the pills between Emily’s lips.
The video showed everything.
Then something worse.
At 11:38, after Emily collapsed, Margaret called someone.
Not 911.
A lawyer.
“Something happened,” she said.
A man’s voice answered through speakerphone.
“Do not call an ambulance until you know whether she wakes.”
The lawyer’s name was Calvin Price.
May you like
A family friend.
And the executor of Ethan’s father’s estate.
