Chapter 2 - The Digital Trail
The morning after the disastrous homecoming, Corinne sat in the sleek, glass-walled conference room of Rachel Vance, one of the most ruthless and effective family law attorneys in Kansas. Corinne hadn't slept. She had spent the night in the cheap motel, piecing together the fragmented reality of her life.
She recounted everything to Rachel: the edited videos, the fake text messages, and the strange new family portrait over the fireplace. But there was something else that had caught her eye before the police arrived—a strange glass trophy sitting on Ross's desk, commemorating a "Top Earner" status for a financial firm he didn't even work for.
“He purchased an award celebrating a lie,” Corinne said, shaking her head. "Ross has been unemployed for two years. He bought it to make himself look like a stable provider for the custody courts, to look like he was the one holding the family together while I was deployed."
Rachel's eyes narrowed as she took notes. The lawyer immediately filed motions to counter Ross's temporary custody request and demanded a strict schedule for supervised visits so Corinne could at least see her daughter.
During her next supervised visit at a neutral family center, Casey was quiet, coloring in a sketchbook. Slowly, she began to draw. She drew Ross holding a phone, Gwendolyn raising one hand, and a small, square box hidden on a bookshelf.
Corinne pointed to the square box. “What did Dad use the camera for, sweetheart?”
Casey looked around nervously, ensuring the court-appointed supervisor was out of earshot, and lowered her voice to a whisper.
“He made me practice crying for when you came home. He said you would get angry, and the camera needed to see it.”
Corinne’s blood ran cold. The setup was even more premeditated than she had realized. Armed with this drawing and Corinne's testimony, Rachel obtained an emergency court order preserving all digital accounts connected to the property.
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When the subpoena was served, Ross smugly claimed the camera was missing, destroyed by Corinne in a fit of rage before the police arrived. But they hadn't counted on Mrs. Odom, the elderly neighbor who lived across the street. Rachel subpoenaed Mrs. Odom’s security camera footage, which clearly showed Gwendolyn walking out of the house the morning after Corinne’s return and throwing a distinct, square camera packaging box into her vehicle.
By tracking the make and model from the discarded box, Rachel found the camera's serial number. The serial number led investigators directly to a hidden cloud account Ross had registered under a fake name.
