Chapter 3 - What the Bug Recorded
I locked all the car doors and pulled into the farthest corner of the diner's lot, beneath the shade of an old oak tree. My hands were still cold, my wedding dress feeling like a heavy, suffocate armor of silk and lace. I unzipped the back as far as I could reach, tearing the fine zipper, and pulled off the restrictive bodice, leaving myself in the plain white camisole I wore underneath.
"Emma, stay right here in your seat. I'm going to look at what's on this drive," I said softly.
I pulled out my laptop from my overnight bag in the trunk—the bag I had packed for our honeymoon in St. Lucia, a trip that was never going to happen now. I plugged the micro-USB drive into the side port. My heart hammered as the folder window popped up on the screen.
It wasn't just audio files.
The drive contained dozens of folder directories, meticulously labeled by date and time. Matthew hadn't just hidden a bug in Emma’s rabbit; he had been recording us for over six months. There were audio logs from our living room, our kitchen, and worst of all, Emma’s bedroom.
I clicked on an audio file dated three weeks prior—the night I had asked Matthew why Emma seemed so distant around him.
The audio cracked to life through my laptop speakers.
Matthew's voice: "Emma, come here." Emma's small, frightened voice: "I'm playing with my blocks." Matthew's voice, dropping low, cold, and sharp—a voice I had never heard him use in two years: "I didn't ask what you were doing. I told you to come here. Look at me." A long silence, followed by the rustle of fabric. Matthew's voice: "You think your mom is going to take your side forever? Look at this house. I pay for this. I buy your food. If you keep making those faces when I touch your shoulder, if you keep running to her every time I enter the room, I will make sure she sends you away to a school far from here. Do you understand me? You will never see her." Emma whimpering: "I want Mommy..." Matthew's voice: "Mommy is tired of you. She wants a real family. A real husband. If you ruin this for her, it’s your fault. Now take this rabbit and don't you ever repeat a word of this, or Bunny goes in the trash, and so do you."
I slammed the laptop shut, tears of burning fury finally spilling over my lashes. The air left my lungs in a painful gasp. He had been psychologically abusing my daughter, breaking her spirit in secret, using her love for me to keep her silent.
"Mommy? Are you crying?" Emma asked from the backseat, her voice tiny and laced with guilt.
I pulled myself into the back seat beside her, wrapping my arms around her small frame, pulling her tight against my chest. "No, sweetie. I'm not sad. I'm just so sorry. I'm so, so sorry I didn't listen to you sooner."
"Is Matthew coming?" she whispered into my shoulder.
"No," I said fiercely, looking her in the eyes. "He is never, ever going to touch you, speak to you, or come near you again. I promise you that on my life."
My phone rang in the cup holder up front. The screen lit up with Matthew's name. I let it ring. Then it rang again. And again. Then a text popped up:
Claire, if you don't bring Emma back to my house in thirty minutes, I am calling the police and reporting that you have kidnapped her. We have a joint custody agreement drafted for after the wedding. Don't make this hard on yourself.
I stared at the screen. The joint custody agreement—it was a document we had drafted with his lawyer last month, intended to give him legal parental rights over Emma once we were married. It hadn't been signed or filed yet because the wedding hadn't happened, but he was already trying to use it to intimidate me.
He thought I was weak. He thought I was a frightened single mother who would bow to legal jargon and threats.
I didn't reply to the text. Instead, I opened my contacts and called Detective Marcus Vance—a long-time family friend of my late father, a man who had worked in the domestic violence unit for twenty years before moving to major crimes.
"Claire?" Marcus’s voice answered on the second ring, sounding surprised. "Aren't you supposed to be getting married right now? My wife said she saw a post on Facebook about..."
"Marcus, I need your help," I interrupted, my voice trembling but clear. "I just ran out of the church. Matthew has been bugging my daughter's toys. I have audio files of him threatening her, blackmailing her, and stalking us. He’s threatening to report me for kidnapping right now."
There was a sharp pause on the line. I heard the rustle of paper and the heavy thud of a chair adjusting.
"Where are you right now, Claire?" Marcus asked, his tone shifting instantly from friendly casualness to professional authority.
May you like
"I'm at the highway diner off Route 9," I said. "I have the laptop with me. I have the drive."
"Stay right there. Lock the doors. Do not answer his calls, do not text him back, and do not go home," Marcus commanded. "I'm coming to you right now. And Claire? Bring that drive. If what you're saying is on there, Matthew isn't going to be calling the police today. The police are going to be looking for him."
