My mother, standing in the hallway doorway, had seen my wife strike her son.

And the small camera mounted discreetly above the foyer — a different camera, one Wendy had never known about, because it was part of the security system she had never administered — had seen it too, and had recorded it, in high definition, with the time and date stamped in the corner.

Wendy had just added a documented physical assault, against a witness and on video, to a case that was already going to bury her.

She did not know it yet.

But she had just handed me the last brick, and it was one I had not even needed.

Chapter 16 — The Doorbell