“Yes.”
There was no defensiveness in her voice.
“I had asked her last week whether Ethan ever got a break. She told me he liked being useful. This morning I saw what useful meant.”
I sat down again.
Debbie sent two short clips from her doorbell camera. Both showed the front of our property, nothing inside the house.
In the first, Ethan came down the sidewalk in a raincoat with Duke on a leash. The timestamp read 7:02 a.m. He stopped at our steps, wiped the dog’s paws with a towel, and hurried inside.
In the second, taken on Saturday, he carried a yard-waste bag to the curb.
Neither clip proved anything terrible by itself.
Children walk dogs. Children help in yards.
But beside that photograph, the ordinary movements looked different.
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