“Shut that off.”
No one obeyed him.
The property manager, Samuel Price, had already stationed two security guards beside the controls.
Both men looked to me for instructions.
I gave none.
Grandmother began to speak.
“My name is Evelyn Reynolds.
I am recording this statement voluntarily regarding the disposition of Maple Hill and the conduct of my son, Richard Reynolds, his wife, Elaine, and their son, Tyler.”
My mother whispered, “She was confused near the end.”
Marcus Chen heard her.
“The recording was made twelve years ago,” he said.
“Two physicians signed competency affidavits that same week.”
The video continued.
Grandmother explained that she had first learned what happened to me after receiving a call from her sister, Laura.
Laura had been asked to take temporary custody of a fourteen-year-old girl whose parents claimed she had run away.
Grandmother had driven to the county office expecting a misunderstanding.
Instead, she found me sitting beneath fluorescent lights in borrowed sweatpants, clutching a paper cup with both hands because I could not stop shaking.
“Ava did not run away,” Grandmother said from the screen.
“Her father removed her from his vehicle at a gas station approximately eighty miles from home.
He left her without a telephone, adequate clothing, or sufficient money.
Her mother and brother remained in the vehicle and allowed it to happen.”
