at her daughter and pulled the curtain closed.
Ronald stopped the video.
He could hear his own breathing through the call with Cole.
“Play it through,” Cole said softly.
Ronald resumed.
The frame swung away from the window and into the upstairs hallway.
Heavy footsteps struck the stairs.
Paige backed into a bedroom.
The doorknob turned once.
Then it turned harder.
Luke’s voice came from the hall.
“Paige, open the door.”
The recording ended.
Ronald immediately typed, “Are you safe right now?”
Three dots appeared on the screen.
They vanished.
Then they returned.
Paige answered that she had left the house and was staying somewhere the Higgins family did not know.
She still had the original file on the phone that recorded it.
That detail mattered.
A forwarded clip could be challenged.
An original device could preserve the file’s metadata, creation time, and sequence.
Ronald instructed Paige not to meet
