Promise You Won't Tell?

Chapter 43

Riley told the truth.

There are two camera angles, merged into a split-screen. The left side shows the view from the dresser, ten feet from the foot of Kelli’s bed. The right side shows an overhead view. If you want to see what happened in general, without the graphic detail, you can cover the right side of the screen.

The cameras begin rolling when the light comes on, and what you see at the beginning is a young girl in pajamas, clearly Riley Freeman, entering the room. She stops a moment to sit on the corner of the bed. She’s holding her stomach. There is sound, but she’s silent, except for an occasional heavy sigh, as if she’s in mild discomfort. She leans her head down, hair covering her face, then puts her head in her hands. 

From the left camera you can see the bathroom door is open. Riley gets up on shaky legs, and makes her way to the bathroom, where she puts a hand against the wall to steady herself before entering. She goes in, and closes the bathroom door behind her.

 Since the lights are still on, the cameras continue to run. Minutes go by, without a sound. There is no sound of a toilet flushing, but I hear water running for a few seconds. Then it stops, and the door opens. As Riley comes out I notice a hand towel in her left hand that falls to the floor behind her. She staggers to the bed and sits there a minute, staring blankly. Then she slowly eases herself onto her right side, facing the bedroom door, and lies there fifteen seconds before scooting to the middle of the bed.

When Riley gave me her explanation of these events, limited as it was, for some reason I envisioned her lying on her back the entire time. But that’s not what happened. She’s on her side, knees close to her stomach. Both cameras show her pajama shirt riding up slightly in the back, revealing approximately three inches of her lower back.

She has not positioned herself in a sexy manner. In other words, if this had been staged, I would expect the presentation to be far more erotic.

Within minutes, she’s clearly unconscious.

Ethan Lied. 

By my count, six minutes pass before the door is opened. I’m expecting the light to go off and the camera to shut down, which would indicate Parker Page has entered the room to check on Riley. I study the video very carefully to see the break in the tape that shows the camera went off and then back on.

To my surprise, the cameras continue to roll. There is no break or gap in the video because the light is never turned off. As further evidence the cameras have not stopped, I hear someone speaking just before the door opens. The voice is male, and melodic in a creepy sing-song way, as if he’s playing hide-and-seek. He says, “Ri-ley, oh Ri-ley! Where are you, Riley? Are you in here?”

Two teenage boys, our own Ethan Clark and Ronnie English—enter the room. Ethan’s doing the talking.

“Ri-ley,” he says, clearly inebriated. He notices her on the bed and says, “Well, what do we have here?”

“Holy shit!” Ronnie says. “Dude!”

“Ri-ley,” Ethan sings.

He slaps her ass.

“Damn!” he says. “She didn’t even move!”

“No way!” Ronnie says.

“Dude! Shut the door!”

Ronnie does. Then, in a voice quivering with excitement, says, “Oh, my God! This is great. Wait. She’s probably faking.”

“I don’t think so, man. Check this out.”