Chapter 2 - THE CLOUD BACKUP
Camille tried to power off the phone.
I caught her wrist before she could.
Not hard.
Just enough to stop her thumb.
“Put it down.”
“Let go of me.”
“Put the phone on the table.”
Mia began crying louder.
I released Camille immediately.
That was enough.
I had no intention of turning my daughter’s birthday into another scene she would remember with fear.
Camille placed the phone beside the ruined cake.
Then she folded her arms.
“Fine. Listen to whatever nonsense she recorded.”
I picked Mia up instead.
Her cheek was hot beneath my palm.
“Did Camille hit you before today?”
Mia looked at her.
That tiny glance broke something inside me.
Camille answered for her.
“Grant, she’s two.”
“I asked Mia.”
My daughter whispered, “Sometimes.”
Camille laughed in disbelief.
“Oh my God.”
I carried Mia upstairs.
Behind us Camille called, “You cannot seriously be taking the word of a toddler over your wife.”
I didn’t answer.
In Mia’s room, I photographed her cheek, checked her head and arms, then called my sister, Rebecca, who was a pediatric nurse practitioner.
She came within twenty minutes.
Camille hated that.
“What are you trying to prove?” she demanded.
Rebecca ignored her and examined Mia privately with me present.
No serious injury.
A clear hand-shaped mark.
A bruise near Mia’s upper arm that looked several days old.
I had never noticed it.
Rebecca did.
“When did this happen?”
Mia whispered, “Bathroom.”
Camille immediately said Mia had slipped getting out of the tub.
Rebecca looked at me.
Not accusing.
Just careful.
“Document everything.”
Downstairs, I logged into the family cloud from my laptop.
Natalie’s phone had uploaded seventy-three new files over the previous eleven days.
My stomach tightened.
Seventy-three.
Mia had apparently been pressing record far more often than anyone realized.
Most were ten-second clips of toys, carpet, cartoons and Mia singing to herself.
Then I reached a video recorded three days earlier.
The camera faced the floor.
Camille’s heels entered frame.
Her voice came from above.
“How many times do I have to tell you to stop asking for her?”
Mia said, “Mommy picture.”
“She’s dead, Mia.”
My hand froze over the trackpad.
Camille continued.
“And she is not coming back, so stop trying to make Daddy sad.”
Mia whimpered.
Then came a sharp sound.
A slap.
I stopped the recording.
Rebecca closed her eyes.
Behind us, Camille said, “You don’t know what happened before that.”
I turned.
“You hit her.”
“She was having a tantrum.”
“She was asking for a photograph.”
“She becomes hysterical every time Natalie comes up.”
“She’s two.”
Camille’s voice rose.
“And you’re never here when I’m dealing with it!”
That sentence contained a truth I couldn’t ignore.
I had been working twelve-hour days for months.
Camille had been with Mia more than I had.
That meant the question was no longer whether today was an isolated loss of control.
It was how many things had happened while I was gone.
I continued through the uploads.
At file forty-one, the recording changed.
Mia’s phone was apparently beneath the sofa.
Camille was speaking to someone.
A man.
I couldn’t hear his voice clearly.
But I heard Camille.
“Grant signs Friday.”
A pause.
“No. He still thinks the trust changes are for Mia’s protection.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“What trust?”
I didn’t answer.
Because Camille was standing behind us.
May you like
And for the first time since I married her, she looked terrified.
📖 The recordings proved Camille had hurt Mia before, but a quiet phone call turned my daughter’s abuse into part of a much larger plan. 👇
