Chương 4
Emma read it twice.
Then she handed the phone to Robert.
He said nothing for so long that she became worried.
Finally he looked at her.
“Misunderstanding.”
“Yes.”
“Participating.”
“Yes.”
“Testing.”
“Yes.”
Robert gave the phone back.
“I’m going to throw it off the balcony.”
“No.”
“I know.”
Emma typed a reply.
Do not contact me again.
Kyle responded less than thirty seconds later.
Understood. Please be aware the device contains company materials and proprietary technology. We would appreciate preservation of the hardware until ownership can be clarified.
Emma showed Robert.
He sat heavily in the desk chair.
“Oh,” he said.
“What?”
“He’s scared too.”
Emma looked at the clear food container on the dresser.
For the first time since the café, she felt something besides fear.
It was smaller.
Colder.
Useful.
“Good.”
They left the resort before dinner.
Daniel’s belongings remained in the original room.
Emma did not ask where he would sleep.
Robert drove her minivan because she had not slept more than two consecutive hours in weeks. The twins were strapped into the back. Emma sat between their car seats, watching the rise and fall of two small chests while the resort disappeared behind them.
Her phone vibrated in her lap.
She had muted Daniel but not blocked him.
She wanted a record.
The phrase came naturally, and she disliked that too.
A record.
Already their marriage was becoming something that required documentation.
Robert drove five miles under the speed limit.
Usually Emma teased him for treating highways like hostile territory.
She did not tease him.
After twenty minutes he said, “Your mother would have hated that shirt.”
Emma looked toward the front.
“What?”
“The one I’m wearing.”
She glanced at the beige shirt patterned with tiny brown palm trees.
“She bought it for you.”
“Exactly. She regretted it immediately.”
Emma almost smiled.
Her mother had been dead five years.
Robert had continued wearing the shirt because she hated it, which was the most Robert-like form of mourning imaginable.
A minute later Emma said, “I don’t want you telling people.”
He glanced at her in the mirror.
“People?”
“Aunt Linda. Uncle Ray. Everybody you call when you’re angry.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Yes, you were.”
He sighed.
“I was going to tell Linda.”
“Don’t.”
“Fine.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
She looked down at Eli.
“I don’t know what this is yet.”
“It’s bad.”
“I know it’s bad.”
“I’m just saying—”
“I know.”
Robert quieted.
Five minutes passed.
Then he said, “I’m sorry I hit him.”
Emma looked up.
He kept his eyes on the road.
“I wanted to hit him again,” he added.
“That makes the apology less effective.”
“I know.”
This time she did smile, though only for a second.
At Robert’s house, the guest room still held a wooden dresser Emma had used in high school. There was a pale square on the wall where a poster had once hung. Robert had converted his den into a makeshift nursery after the twins were born, insisting it was temporary while buying two bassinets, a changing pad, diapers in three sizes, and enough wipes to survive a minor apocalypse.
Emma had mocked him for it.
That night she was grateful.
At 8:12, after both babies were fed, changed, and finally asleep, she opened Daniel’s messages.
There were twenty-three.
Most were versions of the same thing.
Please let me explain.
I love you.
It isn’t what you think.
I made a terrible decision.
I was trying to help us financially.
I never sold pictures of the boys.
That last one stopped her.
She had never accused him of selling pictures.
She typed: What exactly did you sell?
Daniel called immediately.
Emma stared at his name.
Robert was in the kitchen washing bottles.
She answered.
For several seconds neither spoke.
Daniel breathed into the phone.
“Hi.”
“What did you sell?”
“Nothing like that.”
“I didn’t say what ‘like that’ meant.”
“I know.”
“So answer.”
He exhaled.
“Data.”
“What data?”
“Video.”
Her hand tightened around the phone.
“Of me?”
“Of the household.”
“Do not call me the household.”
Silence.
“Emma.”
“How long?”
Another silence.
That one was longer.
“How long?”
“Five weeks.”
She looked toward the bassinets.
The boys were six weeks old.
She said, “You started when they came home.”
“I installed the device three days after we brought them home.”
Something inside her seemed to lose its grip.
She sat down.
“You put a hidden camera in our house three days after I came home from surgery.”
“It wasn’t always on.”
“Where?”
“The nursery mostly.”
“Mostly.”
“And downstairs.”
“Where downstairs?”
“Living room.”
“Where else?”
“I moved it.”
“Where else?”
Daniel began to cry.
Not loudly.
She heard him inhale through his nose.
Emma felt nothing in response.
“Where else?”
“Bedroom.”
Her eyes went to the dark window.
“Our bedroom.”
“Yes.”
She closed her mouth.
The room seemed suddenly too warm.
“What did it record?”
“It triggered based on activity and audio levels. It didn’t record constantly.”
“Daniel.”
“Normal stuff.”
“Define normal.”
“Feedings. Us talking. The babies sleeping. You walking around. Me walking around.”
“Changing clothes?”
“I tried to delete anything like that.”
“Tried.”
“I deleted it.”
“From where?”
Silence.
Emma stood.
Her legs did not feel trustworthy.
“Where did you send the video?”
“To a secure workspace.”
“Who had access?”
“Kyle and two engineers.”
“Names.”
“I don’t know if—”
“Names.”
“Aaron Bell and Priya Shah.”
“And who else?”
“No one.”
She said nothing.
Daniel rushed to fill it.
“The company is called TenderTrace. Kyle started it after Lattice laid us off. It’s a monitoring system. Infant safety. Caregiver fatigue. Environmental risk. It’s supposed to recognize patterns that normal baby monitors miss.”
Emma walked into the hallway.
She looked into the den.
Two bassinets.
A lamp.
The diaper caddy.
A white-noise machine.
Stuffed bear.
Closet door.
She knew the camera was not there.
She knew because the camera was sealed inside a plastic container upstairs.
May you like
Her body did not believe her.
“You recorded me without telling me so your friend could build software.”
