Chapter 3 - THE RED LIGHT
Rosie came home with me that night.
Child services completed a preliminary home check first.
No automatic assumption that the angry-looking father in the suit was safe because he appeared protective on video.
Good.
My home had:
Locked medication.
Secured firearms in a biometric safe because my work required occasional executive-protection certifications.
Food.
A bedroom clearly belonging to Rosie.
No criminal history beyond one bar fight at twenty-two that ended in a fine.
No domestic-violence record.
No restraining orders.
No reason to remove her.
For the next seventy-two hours, no contact with Bethany or my parents.
Daniel could contact us because he was cooperating and had not been implicated.
Rosie slept in my bed.
At 3:11 a.m., she woke crying.
“Red light off.”
“There’s no red light.”
I turned on the bedside lamp.
She searched the ceiling.
Then my phone.
“Not that one.”
“What one?”
“The smile box.”
I wanted to ask.
Didn’t.
“Okay. No smile box.”
She pressed her face into my shoulder.
“Can I sleep ugly?”
My chest hurt.
“You can sleep any way you want.”
The next morning, Renee arranged a formal forensic interview.
I watched nothing.
Did not sit behind glass.
Did not hear live audio.
That rule nearly drove me insane.
The interviewer later gave investigators the relevant themes.
Not every sentence.
Rosie described:
A “joke room.”
Bright light.
A little camera.
Sometimes costumes.
Sometimes Bethany telling her to stand in one place.
Sometimes “surprises.”
“What kind?” I asked Renee.
“She described things intended to frighten or upset her.”
“Physical harm?”
“Some actions involved physical contact.”
“The arm marks?”
“Possibly.”
“How?”
“We need corroboration.”
Good.
No guessing.
Rosie said one game involved small suction-cup toys placed on her arms.
They left circles.
She did not like them.
Bethany laughed.
Another involved a rubber insect inside her snack box.
Another involved turning the hall lights off and making noises behind a door.
Another involved telling Rosie her favorite stuffed rabbit had been thrown away, then filming her reaction before returning it.
Cruel.
Humiliating.
Not torture.
Enough.
The cheek bruise?
Rosie said:
“Aunt Beth pushed me when I ran.”
That would need corroboration.
“What were the videos for?”
Renee did not know.
Rosie called them:
“jokes for the people.”
“What people?”
“She said boxes came when the people liked her.”
Boxes.
I searched Bethany online.
Her public accounts looked ordinary.
Thirty thousand followers on a lifestyle page.
Interior decorating.
Family recipes.
Wine.
Occasional photographs with Rosie—but only ones I knew about.
No fear videos.
No humiliating pranks.
No obvious channel.
I had signed a general release two years earlier allowing family photographs on personal social media.
Not commercial exploitation.
Julia Camden, my attorney, read the old release.
“This does not permit paid use.”
“Good.”
“But we need to know what exists.”
Police obtained a preservation order.
Bethany’s devices.
Home camera data.
Cloud accounts.
My parents’ router logs.
No full search yet.
Preservation first.
That afternoon, a delivery arrived at my parents’ house while police were there.
Large cardboard box.
Recipient:
B. WHITMORE? No—wrong family.
We had no surname given.
Keep family surname private? I had used none. Let's call family Hart? Need stable. Better no surname.
The label read:
BETHANY — LITTLE R / UNIT 4.
Sender:
NORTHSTAR FAMILY EXPERIENCES.
Inside were unopened products.
Children’s toys.
Snack boxes.
A remote-controlled spider.
A small fog machine.
A miniature siren.
A note:
ROUND FOUR TEST KIT — STRONGER REACTIONS REQUESTED.
Detective Allison read the note twice.
Then called me.
“We are no longer treating the word ‘joke’ casually.”
“What is Northstar?”
“We’re finding out.”
Before she hung up, she added:
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“One of the products has a printed production code.”
“So?”
“It matches a code written on the whiteboard Daniel recorded in the hallway.”
I closed my eyes.
May you like
Bethany had not improvised what she did to Rosie.
Someone had been sending her instructions.
