Chapter 4 - The SmartwatchThe smartwatch contained eighty-seven audio files.
Some were harmless.
Cartoons.
Songs.
Sorrel humming.
A door closing.
Her own breathing.
Others were not.
Detective Ellis allowed me to hear only selected recordings.
The first was Aurelia.
“You don't call your father without asking me.”
Sorrel answered:
“He said I can.”
“He says many things when he's home.”
Another recording.
Sorrel crying.
“You lost dinner because you lied.”
“I didn't.”
“You said Daddy was coming.”
Another.
A male voice said:
“You can't keep doing this when staff are here.”
Aurelia answered:
“Then staff can leave.”
Then came the recording that destroyed whatever hope I had left.
Metal scraping.
Sorrel's frightened voice.
“I don't like it.”
Aurelia:
“Then stop running.”
Detective Ellis stopped the audio.
I stared at the table.
“The chain wasn't the first time.”
“No.”
I left the room.
I made it to the courthouse bathroom before vomiting.
Then I returned.
Because I couldn't let pain become an excuse for ignorance.
The metadata showed the recordings had been made over twelve weeks.
Aurelia had altered the parental-control settings from her tablet.
She had restricted Sorrel's communication.
She had hidden my contact.
And the nightly calls I thought were live?
Some had been old recordings.
Aurelia had replayed Sorrel's voice to me.
“Night, Daddy.”
I had believed my daughter was speaking to me.
She wasn't.
An investigator asked:
“Why didn't you insist on video calls?”
I had reasons.
Bad signal.
Long hours.
Time differences.
Aurelia saying Sorrel became upset.
None of them changed the answer.
“I should have.”
That night, Sorrel slept at my sister Camille's house under a temporary safety plan.
I sat beside her bed.
I watched her breathe.
I wanted to tell myself I couldn't possibly have known.
But I knew she had become quieter.
I knew she had stopped laughing on calls.
I knew something felt wrong.
I had accepted explanations because they made my work easier.
That failure belonged to me.
Then my lawyer called.
Dane Family Support Services had billed Sorrel's trust approximately $96,000.
Oak Crest Child Services had been billed $44,800 for services they denied providing.
And inside Aurelia's guardianship petition was a phrase that made my blood run cold:
May you like
Permanent placement.
She had been planning years ahead.
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