Security footage showed a person in a black hoodie entering the employee lot at 11:08 p.m.
The face wasn’t visible.
But I recognized the shoes.
White leather.
Gold stripe.
I had bought them for Tessa the previous Christmas.
Clare watched the footage with me in my office.
“You’re calling the police.”
“Yes.”
“No protecting her.”
“I know.”
“I mean it, Ian.”
“So do I.”
That was harder than selling the house.
I wish I could tell you otherwise.
Selling a property was paperwork.
Reporting my sister felt like betrayal.
Not because she didn’t deserve consequences.
Because I had been trained to believe consequences were something outsiders imposed.
Inside the family, we absorbed things.
We forgave.
We covered.
We lied.
We paid.
We cleaned up.
We called destruction an accident.
We called cruelty stress.
We called theft borrowing.
We called dependence bad luck.
The officer took the report.
