He would spend the following weeks gathering evidence, footage and toxicology and legal documents, and the evidence would matter enormously, for the courts and the police.

But the evidence was never what convinced Marcus.

His daughter had convinced him, in the front hallway, in fifteen seconds, before any of it.

And he understood, kneeling there, that this was the most important thing a parent could ever do, and the thing that had almost not happened: to actually stop, on a busy morning, with a plane to catch, and listen to a frightened child, and believe her.

He had been fifteen minutes and one small glance away from not listening at all.