Chapter 21: Alana's Statement

Lydia's POV

Alana swore her statement on Friday morning, in my father's office, in front of an Army lawyer from the embassy.

She wore a plain black dress and no makeup.

Alana's mother sat beside her with a hand on her knee.

The lawyer set up a laptop and a recorder on the table.

"You've also offered video evidence," he said. "Describe it for the record."

"Seven years of it," Alana said. "I filmed everything from the first day. I thought it was for me."

"For what?"

"So I'd have proof I was real."

She said it plainly, and her mother looked away.

"Play the first clip," she said.

The lawyer pressed a key.

On the screen was our kitchen, five years ago, with Alana at fourteen in the corner of the frame.

Rodney stood at the counter with a glass of bourbon, talking on his phone.

"Hattie? She'll go where I put her," he said. "Same as her mother. Lydia's the cost of doing business, and she's cheap."

I did not move.

I had been standing at the stove behind the camera's blind spot.

I remembered that night.

I had made him a meatloaf, and he had told me it was dry.

"Play the next," Alana said.

A study, last spring.

Rodney at his laptop, with Alana at his shoulder.

On the screen, a college portal.

"Watch," he said to her. "Six clicks, and the girl is nowhere. You'll have the seat by Friday. Say thank you, Alana."

"Thank you, Dad," said the girl in the video, very quietly.

The lawyer stopped it.

Nobody in the office spoke.

My father's knuckles had gone white on the head of his cane.

"I will need all of it," the lawyer said finally. "Every file."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Colonel's Daughter Is Gone from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.