“Red door.”
I froze.
“What red door?”
No answer.
Only the machines.
Only the thin, steady rise and fall of his chest.
Detective Harris found me ten minutes later in the family waiting room.
I was sitting beneath a television showing a cooking segment no one was watching. My coffee had gone cold in my hands. My blouse was wrinkled. My hair was falling loose from its clip. I looked like a woman who had walked through a fire and discovered the fire had only been the hallway.
Harris sat across from me.
He was in his fifties, with tired eyes and a careful voice. The kind of man who had seen too much but still had not learned how to stop caring.
“We unlocked Madison’s phone,” he said.
I gripped the cup so hard the lid bent.
“And?”
He hesitated.
That hesitation hurt worse than the answer.
“There are videos.”
