Chapter 15 - FORTY-EIGHT HOURS
Patricia had a security system.
I knew because she complained constantly about false alerts.
What I hadn't known was that the system kept a basic access log.
Not interior video.
Door events.
Alarm settings.
User codes.
We didn't hack it.
We didn't secretly obtain it.
Michael was still listed as an authorized family user on the household account from years earlier, and with legal guidance he requested records relevant to the dates in question.
The log arrived.
May 12.
Patricia returned home with Ethan at 1:26 p.m.
Front door.
At 3:41, another entry.
Side door opened.
At 4:08, closed.
At 4:19, Patricia left to return Ethan home.
Then something more interesting.
At 8:52 p.m., the study door sensor registered open.
At 9:17, closed.
Patricia had claimed the kit remained untouched in the locked study until she mailed it.
A door opening didn't prove the kit was touched.
But someone entered the room.
“Could be Mom,” Michael said.
“Yes.”
We checked the user log.
The system couldn't identify interior-door users.
Only that the sensor changed state.
The next day showed no study activity.
May 14 at 9:11 a.m., study opened.
At 9:23 Patricia left through the garage.
The shipping receipt was timestamped 9:47.
So the kit likely left the study that morning.
But the evening of May 12 remained important.
Who was there?
The exterior access log showed no guest entry after Ethan left.
Meaning if the system was accurate, Patricia was alone.
Again, not absolute proof.
Someone could have already been inside.
A door could have been left unsecured.
But combined with her own claim, it narrowed things.
Michael stared at the record.
“She collected the samples. Ethan left. Then she went into the room where she says she stored them.”
“Yes.”
“And two days later mailed them.”
“Yes.”
“What was she doing in there?”
“We don't know.”
He hated that answer.
So did I.
Then Robert remembered Patricia's habit.
“She keeps a paper diary.”
Michael looked at him.
“She still does?”
“Every evening.”
I wasn't going to steal it.
But its existence mattered.
If this became formal litigation, relevant records could potentially be requested through lawful process.
For now, we had enough to confront Patricia with one simple discrepancy.
Michael texted:
You said nobody touched the kit after you locked it in the study. The study was opened that night. Why?
Her response came eleven minutes later.
I went in to get paperwork. The DNA kit remained sealed.
I stared at the final sentence.
Remained sealed.
That was more specific than anything she'd previously said.
Michael frowned.
“Was it sealed?”
The home kit instructions answered that.
Individual sample envelopes were sealed after collection.
But the outer return package would still need to be assembled.
Patricia's language wasn't necessarily impossible.
Still, she had now committed herself to another concrete claim.
May you like
The access records narrowed the unexplained handling period to the evening after Ethan's collection, when Patricia entered the study where she said the kit was stored.
In Chapter 16, Patricia's own handwritten diary was produced during the trust dispute, and a six-word entry from that night finally established that she had done more than retrieve paperwork.
