Her expression told me she had.
Mercer leaned forward.
“You can tell us.”
Ruiz hesitated.
Then she pulled a tablet from her bag.
“Only because you’re a direct witness and because your attorney is present.”
She placed it between us.
The video started.
Black-and-white.
Silent.
Our old house stood across the street.
Seeing it again punched the air from my lungs.
There was Mom’s flower box.
Dad’s stupid wooden mailbox shaped like a barn.
The crooked basketball hoop we’d promised to fix.
Then Howard’s truck entered the frame.
11:41 p.m.
He parked twenty yards away.
At 11:43, Howard walked toward our backyard.
The photograph had come from that moment.
“Keep watching,” Ruiz said.
Howard disappeared behind the house.
Five minutes passed.
Nothing.
Eight minutes.
My heartbeat grew louder.
Then—
11:55.
Howard reappeared.
Running.
Not walking.
Running.
He stumbled near the side gate and nearly fell.
Then another figure came through the darkness behind him.
