CHAPTER 2 — THE FIVE MINUTES THAT DISAPPEARED
The police arrived twenty minutes later.
The ambulance checked Emily and fortunately found no serious physical injuries.
But emotionally, she was terrified.
She refused to let go of my hand.
I sat beside her while the officers questioned Claire outside.
I could hear fragments of their conversation through the open window.
“She says she didn't see the child fall…”
“She was inside…”
“There was no one else…”
But I knew that wasn't true.
I had heard Claire scream for help.
I had seen the man at the gate.
And Emily had said someone else was there.
After the police left, I went straight to the security room.
Our property had twelve cameras.
The pool area had three.
Every movement around the house was normally recorded.
I turned on the monitor.
The footage showed Emily playing near the pool.
At 4:11, Claire appeared.
At 4:12, another person entered the garden.
Then the screen went black.
The footage resumed at 4:17.
Five minutes were missing.
Five minutes.
Exactly the amount of time between the last normal recording and Claire's scream.
I stared at the screen.
Someone had deleted the footage.
I called the security company.
They told me the footage could only have been manually erased using the administrator account.
My administrator account.
Or Claire's.
I walked downstairs.
Claire was sitting at the dining table.
“What happened to the security footage?”
She looked up.
“What?”
“Five minutes are missing.”
“I don't know.”
“Only two people have administrator access.”
She didn't answer.
“Me and you.”
Her lips trembled.
“Daniel, you're overreacting.”
“My daughter nearly drowned.”
“I know.”
“You lied to the police.”
“I didn't lie.”
“You told them there was nobody else in the garden.”
Claire stood up.
“I didn't see anyone!”
“But Emily did.”
“She was frightened.”
“She said you weren't alone.”
Claire's face went completely white.
I stepped closer.
“Who was that man?”
She looked toward the window.
“He doesn't matter.”
That answer frightened me more than anything else.
“He doesn't matter?”
“No.”
“Then why were you afraid of him?”
She remained silent.
I had spent twelve years believing I knew my wife.
Suddenly, I wasn't sure I knew her at all.
That night, after Claire went to bed, I checked her phone.
I had never searched through my wife's phone before.
I knew it was wrong.
But my daughter's life had almost been taken.
I needed answers.
There was nothing unusual in her messages.
Until I opened the deleted folder.
One conversation remained.
The last message had been sent at 3:58 PM.
The sender was saved under a single letter.
M.
The message read:
“If you don't do what we agreed, Daniel will lose everything before sunset.”
I read it three times.
Then another message appeared.
“And this time, Emily won't be the only one who gets hurt.”
My hands began to shake.
I looked at the bedroom door.
Claire was sleeping only a few meters away.
My wife wasn't simply hiding something from me.
May you like
She was afraid of someone.
And whoever that person was had threatened my daughter.
