Chapter 6 - What Happened at 10:43 P.M.
The prepaid phone contained an audio recording from the night Lucy escaped.
10:43 p.m.
Aaron’s voice:
“You called someone.”
Leah:
“No.”
“Don’t lie.”
Then Tessa.
Inside the house.
Not across the street.
“You need to calm down.”
Leah:
“Get out of my home.”
Tessa:
“You’re scaring the kids.”
Leah laughed.
Not sanely.
Not insanely.
The bitter laugh of someone who realized the trap had already been narrated.
“You’re giving him my medication.”
Tessa:
“It’s prescribed.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Then a crash.
Lucy crying in the background.
Aaron:
“Take the babies upstairs.”
The recording continued for fourteen minutes.
Leah accused them of drug diversion.
Tessa denied it.
Aaron repeatedly returned to Leah’s mental health.
Then:
“You need sleep.”
Leah:
“Don’t touch me.”
The audio became chaotic.
At 11:09, it ended.
Lucy later remembered Aaron carrying Leah upstairs.
Tessa following.
Leah’s bedroom door closing.
Then Tessa came downstairs and told Lucy:
“Mommy needs quiet.”
At some point afterward, Leah regained enough awareness to create a distraction.
She knocked over a bedside lamp.
Started yelling.
Aaron and Tessa went upstairs.
Lucy heard:
“Red mitten.”
She moved.
Twins.
Sled.
Pantry.
Fence.
At 11:38, she left the house.
The snow concealed her tracks quickly.
Aaron did not realize the children were gone for almost thirty minutes.
When he did, he panicked.
Not immediately because they were outside in dangerous weather.
Because Lucy had the key.
Investigators learned that from another recovered message.
Aaron to Tessa at 12:14:
CHECK THE BOX AT CLAIRE’S.
Tessa:
HOW?
Aaron:
LUCY HAS THE KEY. LEAH GAVE IT TO HER.
That message meant he knew about the diaper carton before calling me.
Which raised a worse question.
If Aaron knew where the evidence was—
why had he not taken it during the previous two weeks?
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Because the box sat behind my locked gate.
And Aaron had never been invited inside my house without me present.
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