My phone started ringing at 2:27 a.m.

By 7:00 a.m., dawn broke gray and bitter over the residential streets of Westbridge.

A convoy of four state vehicles pulled up in front of 412 Maple Street. The house was a modest, two-story Victorian with wrap-around porch railings that my late father had painted by hand twenty years ago. Seeing it now—surrounded by crime scene tape blowing violently in the cold wind—made a deep, personal fury settle behind my ribs.

A blue sedan was parked crookedly in the driveway: Brooke's vehicle.

As Marcus Cole and two state forensic technicians approached the front porch, the front door swung open violently. Brooke stood on the threshold, bundled in a designer down coat, her hair tied back in a messy bun. Behind her stood Arthur, looking like a man who hadn't slept in weeks.

"What do you think you're doing?" Brooke shrieked, pointing a manicured finger at Marcus. "This is private property! Get the hell off our lawn!"

Marcus didn't even pause his stride. He held up the freshly signed search warrant. "State Bureau of Investigation, Mrs. Vance. Step back inside and keep your hands where we can see them, or you will be placed in restraints immediately."

"Arthur! Do something!" Brooke screamed, shoving my brother's shoulder. "Call Uncle Tom! Call him right now!"

"Uncle Tom is currently having his department's servers impounded by the State Police, Brooke," I said, stepping onto the porch behind Marcus.

Brooke froze. Her eyes locked onto mine, filled with raw, venomous hatred. "You think you're so smart, don't you, Clara? You think because you wear a fancy suit in the city that you can come back here and ruin everything Arthur and I have worked for?"

"What have you worked for, Brooke?" I asked quietly, walking past her into the warm foyer. "Beating a seventy-one-year-old woman with a blunt weapon to steal her equity?"

"She fell down the stairs!" Brooke snarled, completely contradicting her earlier story to the police. "She was screaming and throwing things! Arthur, tell her!"

Arthur backed against the hallway wall, his face gray. "Brooke... shut up. Just shut up."

"Don't you tell me to shut up, you coward!" Brooke turned on him, her voice reaching a screech. "I did this for you! Who do you think pays your debts? Who do you think covers your loans?"

The lead forensic technician, a woman named Sarah Jenkins, knelt near the entryway runner rug. She clicked on a high-intensity ultraviolet light. Under the blue glow, wide, circular splatter patterns blossomed across the floral wallpaper and the edge of the baseboard.

"Luminol reaction positive," Sarah announced calmly. "Someone tried to clean this with ammonia and bleach, but the spatter profile is extensive. Medium-velocity blunt impact spatter."

Brooke's breath caught in her throat.

"Where is the bat, Arthur?" I asked, looking directly at my brother.

Arthur opened his mouth, but only a dry wheeze came out.

"Don't you say a word, Arthur!" Brooke yelled, stepping between us. "They don't have anything! It's our word against a senile old woman's!"

"Sarah," I said, ignoring Brooke entirely. "Check the secondary access panel in the basement under the furnace. Arthur always hid his contraband there when we were kids."

Arthur's face collapsed. He slid down the wall until he was sitting flat on the hallway floor, burying his face in his trembling hands.

"Arthur, get up!" Brooke lunged at him, kicking his boot. "Get up, you pathetic loser!"

"Trooper, detain Mrs. Vance for interfering with an active search," Marcus instructed.

Within five seconds, Brooke’s arms were pulled behind her back, and steel handcuffs clicked shut around her wrists. "Get your hands off me! You can't touch me! Arthur, you do something! Uncle Tom will have all your jobs!"

"Uncle Tom won't have his own job by lunch, Mrs. Vance," Marcus said dryly.

Ten minutes later, Sarah Jenkins walked up the basement stairs carrying a long, clear evidence bag. Inside lay a thirty-two-inch Rawlings wooden baseball bat. Even through the heavy plastic, the dark, rusty discoloration near the barrel was clearly visible, along with streaks of chemical residue where Brooke had sloppily attempted to wipe it down.

"We also found this," Sarah added, holding up a small digital camera mounted on a magnetic base. "It was positioned on top of the china cabinet in the dining room. It's a standard home security nanny cam."

Brooke’s struggling stopped instantly. Her eyes bulged as she stared at the little camera.

"That's... that's disconnected," Brooke stammered, her voice suddenly losing all its venom, replaced by naked panic. "The Wi-Fi was off. It doesn't work."

"It has an internal SD card slot, Brooke," I said, pointing to the tiny black slot on the side of the housing. "Mom bought this system six months ago when she thought neighborhood raccoons were getting into her bird feeders. She never knew how to hook it up to the internet. It records locally on loop."

Arthur let out a dry, broken sob from the floor. "It recorded everything. Oh God... it recorded everything."

Brooke lunged toward Sarah in a desperate, wild attempt to knock the camera from her hands. "Give me that! That's my private property!"

The state trooper grabbed Brooke firmly, pinning her against the front doorframe. "Stop resisting, ma'am!"

"Take her to the county holding facility in Greenville," Marcus ordered. "Do not route her through Westbridge."

As the troopers hauled a screaming, thrashing Brooke down the porch steps and forced her into the rear of a state patrol unit, the quiet morning air returned to Maple Street.

I turned to Arthur, who remained crumpled on the floorboards, weeping into his palms.