For years, my stepfather kept my twin sister and me living in constant fear, as though our suffering was the only thing that satisfied him. One night, after beating us until we both lost consciousness, he carried us into the emergency room while my mother quietly told the doctors, “They just fell down the stairs.”

I looked toward Chloe. She gave me a single nod, and that was all the encouragement I needed.

“I can show you.”

The detective looked up from her notes.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s all recorded.”

Both she and Dr. Cooper exchanged surprised glances, so I explained everything from the beginning. I told them about the broken phone hidden beneath the loose floorboard, the automatic cloud backup my father had unknowingly left behind, and the recordings that had quietly captured every threat, every beating, and every lie spoken inside our house.

Detective Martin slowly stopped writing.

“How many recordings?”

“Eighty-seven.”

The room fell silent.

She opened her laptop, signed into the encrypted account using the information I gave her, and watched dozens of audio files appear one after another. The list stretched down the screen until the final file appeared.

Recording 087.

Eighty-seven nights.

Eighty-seven chances for someone to believe us.