Chapter 5 - The Confession in the Interacting Room
The interrogation room at the county sheriff’s station smelled faintly of old coffee and bleach. The metal table between us felt like a chasm dividing two entirely different lives.
Mark sat across from me, his shoulders slumped, his defense completely shattered. Outside the one-way glass, Tyler was sitting with a social worker, staring blankly at a coloring book, completely shattered by the realization that his father had used his rebellious pranks as a smokescreen for something much darker.
“I didn't want to hurt her, Rebecca,” Mark whispered, staring down at his interlocked fingers. His voice sounded hollow, stripped of all the arrogant bluster he usually wore like armor.
“Then why buy the hardware, Mark?” I asked, leaning forward, my voice dead calm. “Why help Tyler escalate from petty bullying to psychological torture? What were you planning?”
Mark let out a shaky, self-pitying sigh, rubbing his face with his palms. “It was... it was about the custody agreement with my ex-wife, Sarah. If I could prove that our household was chaotic, that the environment here was unstable... Sarah was planning to use it to petition for full custody of Tyler and reduce my alimony payments. I thought if Tyler pulled enough harmless pranks, and I played them off as nothing, we could build a paper trail showing our home life was manageable chaos—just normal blended-family stress.”
I stared at him in sheer disbelief. “You staged a psychological terror campaign against our six-year-old daughter just to manipulate a financial custody dispute with your ex-wife?”
“Not against Lily! I didn't want to scare her like that!” Mark protested weakly, looking up with pleading eyes. “Tyler went rogue! He bought his own materials for the shoebox tonight because he wanted to force my hand to send him to Seattle faster! I only bought that other unit to... to plant a minor sensor failure in the guest room report, not to put a ticking clock under Lily’s bed! Tyler added that part on his own!”
“You created the monster, Mark,” I said, standing up and smoothing down my jacket. “And tonight, you both nearly broke a little girl’s mind to protect your ego and your wallet.”
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I walked to the door, pausing with my hand on the metal handle.
“Divorce papers will be on your desk by noon tomorrow. And don't bother trying to contest custody. The motion camera in Lily’s room recorded every single word of your conversation with Tyler when you walked into the hallway tonight.”
