Chapter 4 — Vincent checks his phone for neighborhood security footage — Then a time mismatch shatters Trey’s alibi
Vincent pulled his smartphone from his jacket pocket.
He unlocked the screen with a quick swipe of his thumb.
“Give me a second,” Vincent said. “My porch camera records everything in a twenty-foot radius.”
Caleb stood up from the opened cardboard box.
“You have a camera pointed right at the walkway?” Caleb asked.
“Hardwired to my home network,” Vincent replied, tapping the glass screen several times. “It logs every visitor, every delivery, and every movement 24 hours a day.”
Trey stopped backing away toward the front door.
His shoulders tensed as he watched Vincent scroll through the application interface.
“Let’s see who dropped these boxes off,” Vincent muttered.
He tapped on the activity log for the previous night.
A list of thumbnail images and timestamps appeared on the bright display.
Vincent pinched the screen to zoom in on the late-night timeline.
“Here is the motion alert,” Vincent said, holding the phone out toward Caleb and Trey. “Right at 11:42 PM.”
Caleb leaned in close to examine the small video feed.
The camera footage showed the front porch cast in the pale amber glow of the motion sensor light.
A figure stepped onto the wooden deck carrying a heavy stack of cardboard boxes.
The person was wearing the exact green jacket that currently lay discarded on the porch planks.
“That proves it,” Caleb said, his voice rising again as he looked at Trey. “You were right here wearing that jacket.”
“Wait a second,” Vincent interrupted, staring intently at the tiny screen.
Vincent tapped the pause button and scrubbed the video back a few frames.
“Look at the timestamp,” Vincent said, pointing a finger at the corner of the video.
“11:42 PM,” Caleb repeated.
“Now look at Trey’s alibi,” Vincent said quietly.
Vincent pulled up a text message thread on his own device from earlier in the evening.
It was a message Trey had sent to Vincent’s son at 11:30 PM asking to borrow a game controller.
“You texted my house from your bedroom computer fifteen blocks away at 11:30,” Vincent said, comparing the message time to the video timestamp.
“And you were spotted on this camera twelve minutes later.”
Caleb stared at the phone, then turned his gaze back to his son.
“There is no physical way you could walk from your bedroom to this porch in twelve minutes,” Caleb said.
Trey opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.
Vincent ignored the silence and tapped the screen to zoom in even closer on the visitor’s face captured by the wide-angle lens.
The person in the green jacket stepped directly beneath the porch light, reached up with both hands, and began to lower the heavy hood shadowing their face.