Chapter 4

The lead detective, a man named Miller, looked at me with weary disdain.

"Son, we have a dead child, and we have you with her. We have a video of you in a disturbed state. What more is there to see?"

"Evidence," I said, my voice steady. "Evidence that they are lying."

Maria stepped forward, dabbing at her dry eyes with a handkerchief. "He' s lost his mind, detective. He' s been unstable for weeks. Ever since we told him it was a girl, he' s been... different. He told me once he felt like his life was over if he couldn' t have a son to carry on his name."

It was a lie, crafted to sound just plausible enough. A project manager wanting a son? Believable.

David added, "He bought all this stuff for a boy' s room. Blue paint, trucks. When the baby was born a girl, he refused to even go in the nursery for a week. We had to repaint everything."

The public narrative was being built, brick by brick, right in front of me. The grieving family, the unstable father, the tragic outcome. The neighbors, watching from their lawns, were eating it up. I could feel their judgment like a physical weight.

I knew arguing would be useless. They had planned for that. They wanted me to look irrational.

So I changed tactics.

"Detective Miller," I said, my eyes fixed on his. "You' re right. The evidence looks bad. I understand why you think I did this. So please, humor a crazy man. I want you to secure my phone. The one David just gave you. And I want your tech team to do a full analysis of it."

Miller frowned. "Why?"

"Because it will prove I' m unstable," I said, letting a hint of desperation creep into my voice. "It will show you all the pictures of my daughter. It will show you the texts where I complain about her. It will seal your case."

Chloe' s eyes widened for a fraction of a second. A flicker of panic. She hadn' t expected this. She expected me to scream that the phone was a fake. By asking them to analyze it, I was playing into their hands, or so it seemed.

Miller, sensing an easy confession or further proof of my guilt, nodded to another officer. "Bag it. Get it to the lab. Run a full diagnostic."

The officer took the phone. The one they had planted. The one with the fabricated digital life.

My family relaxed. They thought they had won. They thought my request had just hammered the final nail in my coffin.

But as the officer walked away with the phone, I felt a small, cold spark of hope.

They had built a perfect trap. But even the most perfect traps have a flaw. And by confirming their fabricated reality on that phone, they had just given me the key to finding it.