“This is what happens when spoiled little princesses think their military father owns the world,” she said to the camera.

Jackson reached back and lowered the volume without being asked.

“Your daughter was trying to call you,” he said quietly. “She had that old deactivated phone you gave her to play with. Samantha took it out of her hands and smashed it.”

I looked out at the rain on the window and kept my hands still on my knees.

When we turned onto Oak Ridge Lane, the street looked obscenely peaceful. Trimmed lawns. Warm porch lights on brick houses. Small flags moving in the evening breeze.

That was the detail that turned my stomach. Nothing about that street announced that a child had been terrorized on it a few hours earlier. No smoke. No broken glass.