where to find me.
Your dad would be unbelievably proud.”
Drew’s face collapsed.
For the first time since arriving, he cried like a six-year-old instead of behaving like a tiny exhausted parent.
Peter held him carefully.
“I’ve got you now.
Both of you.”
Shortly before noon, Detective Elena Ruiz arrived.
She was in her forties, with gray beginning at her temples and a manner that was gentle without ever becoming vague.
She interviewed Peter first and then spoke with Drew only with the appropriate child-welfare personnel present.
Officers had already gone to Reena’s home based on the children’s statements and the medical findings.
An hour later Ruiz returned to the hospital.
Peter saw immediately that something had changed.
“What did they find?”
Ruiz glanced toward the children’s room.
“An exterior deadbolt on the basement door.
It can only be operated from the main floor.”
Peter stared at her.
“So they couldn’t get out.”
“Not normally.”
The basement contained two thin foam mats, several empty water bottles, a plastic bucket, and very little else.
There was also a smaller unfinished room beyond the furnace.
Its door locked from the outside too.
When Drew heard Ruiz mention the room, he pulled the blanket over his face.
“That’s the punishment room,” he whispered.
Peter’s stomach twisted.
Police photographed scratches near the bottom of the door.
Some appeared random.
Others formed groups of vertical lines.
Drew later explained that he made one mark each time Reena shut him inside overnight.
Ruiz was careful not to force him into a complete account.
Specialist interviewers would handle that later.
But the house itself kept giving up evidence.
An officer noticed a tiny lens mounted high above a utility shelf.
A second lens was hidden inside the punishment room.
Wires led to a digital recorder concealed behind the furnace cabinet.
“Why would she record them?” Peter asked.
Ruiz had no answer yet.
The recorder did.
Technicians recovered months of video.
Some had been automatically overwritten, but enough remained.
The recordings showed Reena sending the children downstairs for reasons ranging from spilled juice to speaking during her phone calls.
They showed her removing food and leaving only water.
They showed Drew sharing his portions with Lily.
They also captured the aftermath of his broken leg.
Two weeks before the escape, Reena stood at the top of the stairs arguing with Drew because Lily had wet herself.
The camera did not capture the exact moment of injury clearly, but it recorded a sudden movement, a crash, and Lily screaming.
Minutes later Drew pulled himself into view from below, unable to put weight on his right leg.
Reena came down later.
Her voice was clear on the recording.
“If you can crawl around making trouble, you can crawl to bed.”
Over the following days, Drew’s swelling worsened.
At one point he asked for a doctor.
Reena replied, “Doctors ask questions.
You don’t want Lily taken away, do you?”
Peter stopped listening when Ruiz described that portion.
He walked to the far end of the corridor and pressed both hands against the wall.
For three years he had blamed death for separating him from Aaron’s children.
Now he understood that someone living fifteen minutes away had intentionally finished the separation.
“Where is Reena?” he asked.
Police found her that afternoon at
