Chapter 9 - The Digital Breadcrumbs
The deeper we dug into the data, the more of Daniel's lies unraveled. The timeline he had proudly presented to the local police was a complete fabrication, easily dismantled by the very security systems he sold to the public.
Sitting in my clinic room late at night, the soft glow of the laptop illuminating the darkness, I reviewed the compiled forensic report. The automated license plate readers in the lake property's garage logs were undeniable. They showed Daniel’s black SUV entering the private driveway at exactly 7:46 p.m. Vanessa’s silver rental car followed shortly after, passing the gates at 8:03 p.m.
At 8:17 p.m., the carbon monoxide alarms and the main house security systems were manually disabled using Daniel's biometrics.
At 8:29 p.m., a smart-sensor on the maintenance panel in the basement boiler room registered that the heavy metal door had been opened. That was where the exhaust vent had been deliberately rerouted into the house's central HVAC system.
Daniel had sat in our living room and looked the police in the eye, swearing on his life that he had been in the city all evening and didn't arrive at the lake house until 10:12 p.m., long after the tragedy occurred.
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But a municipal traffic camera situated on the highway two miles from the property told a different story. It captured a crystal-clear, high-definition image of Daniel’s SUV speeding away from the lake house at 8:41 p.m. And sitting right beside him in the passenger seat, illuminated by the dashboard lights, was Vanessa.
They had left my babies to suffocate, and driven away together in the dark.
