The officers were still miles out when I stepped into the yard, the late sun making the playhouse look innocent, almost sweet. Up close, that lifted corner of the roof felt like a secret breathing. I pressed my fingers under the warped shingle and found the phone—bagged, labeled with someone else’s life. Its screen lit my face with strangers’ names, time-stamped photos of our back door, our motion lights, the inside of my son’s room. When Melissa saw it in my hand, her smile died so fast it was like watching a mask fall off mid-sentence. She said she’d found it, that she was going to tell me, that it wasn’t what it looked like, but every word came out crooked. Later, the detectives called it reconnaissance, a soft word for the way she’d mapped our absences, tested our locks, rehearsed our vulnerab… Continues…
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