No Record

Detective Marsh came to the house two days later, watched all four hours of footage without a single reaction crossing her face, and then sat with us at the kitchen table with a legal pad covered in names.

"We pulled Paula Kessler's employment history using the references she gave you," she said. "Two of the three families confirmed she worked for them. Neither one filed anything formal when she left."

"Why wouldn't they file something," Ben asked, "if they had concerns?"

"One family told us they just felt 'uneasy' near the end and let her go quietly, no explanation given, glowing reference anyway because it was easier than a confrontation." Marsh's mouth was a thin line. "The other family didn't want to say more than that on the phone. We're following up in person."

No formal complaints. No pattern anywhere an employer or a background check could find, just a trail of families who'd each, independently, felt something was wrong and quietly made it someone else's problem instead of anyone's official record.

"So there's nothing that connects her to anything before us," I said.

"Not yet," Marsh said. "But your footage and Theo's scans are the first hard documentation anyone's ever built against her. That matters, even if it feels like it shouldn't have taken this long."

She stood to leave, then paused at the door with an odd, careful look on her face. "One more thing. Paula has a sixteen-year-old son. He's been with her at two of her previous jobs after school, picking her up, waiting in the car sometimes. I'd like to know what he's seen, if anything. I just don't yet know how to ask a kid that question without it going straight back to his mother tonight."