Chapter 14 - What Rachel told herself
Rachel eventually gave a long recorded statement under a negotiated proffer process.
Not immunity.
A mechanism to explore resolution.
She described the kennel as something that began as a ten-minute containment decision.
Then escalated.
First:
Emily was running.
Then:
Emily was screaming.
Then:
Emily was trying to call me.
Then:
Emily was threatening to tell Mrs. Harris.
Every time Rachel reached the moment where she could stop, she told herself stopping would require explaining everything already done.
So she continued.
The second night, Emily spent approximately three hours in the kennel.
Weather was mild.
She had water.
That became part of Rachel’s self-defense narrative:
“I never left her without water.”
As though the threshold for acceptable parenting is avoiding dehydration.
The third day, Cole added the padlock.
Rachel objected.
Then allowed it.
By the fourth day, the pillow was there.
Crackers.
Bucket.
Tarp.
A temporary confinement space had become a system.
May you like
Not because anyone planned it on day one.
Because nobody stopped it on day two.
