Chương 4
Evan resumed playback.
Recorded Claire stepped back from the crib.
Sophie began to cry.
A second figure appeared in the doorway.
The night-vision image was too poor to show a face clearly.
The person was tall.
Male, probably.
He entered the nursery wearing what looked like a dark jacket.
Claire turned toward him.
Even without sound, their exchange seemed urgent.
The man pointed at the crib.
Claire shook her head.
He stepped closer.
Claire shoved him.
Evan froze the recording.
"Who is that?"
Claire's eyes stayed on the screen.
"I don't know."
"You were arguing with him."
"I know."
"You just said you don't know him."
"I said I don't know who that is."
"That's not the same thing."
"It is when the footage looks like this."
Imani leaned nearer.
Something about the man's posture bothered her.
Not familiarity exactly.
Recognition without context.
He stood with his weight slightly forward, one shoulder lower than the other.
She had seen that stance somewhere.
Evan resumed the clip.
The man reached toward Claire.
She slapped his hand away.
Then he pointed toward the camera.
Claire looked directly up.
The recording glitched.
Static tore through the image.
When it returned, Claire was alone.
The man was gone.
Sophie was still crying.
Claire lifted the child from the crib and held her against her chest.
For almost a minute, she paced.
Then she put Sophie back down.
Before leaving, she crouched near the wall beneath the camera.
The recording ended.
Evan stared at the final black frame.
"Why was this hidden?"
Claire looked at him.
"Because it wasn't supposed to exist."
"Who was the man?"
"I don't know."
"Stop saying that."
"I don't know his name."
Evan's expression changed.
"What do you know?"
Claire looked at Imani.
"More than she does."
"Then start talking."
Claire's gaze dropped to Sophie.
Her voice became quieter.
"The thing in my hand wasn't medicine."
Imani felt her shoulders loosen by a fraction.
Evan did not.
"What was it?"
"A detector."
"For what?"
Claire hesitated.
"Radio frequency."
Evan stared at her.
"You went into our daughter's room at two in the morning with an RF detector."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because somebody told me the nursery had been compromised."
Imani's hand moved unconsciously toward the red memory card.
Claire saw it.
"The card wasn't hidden from you."
"Then who was it hidden from?"
Claire's eyes returned to her husband.
"From whoever in this house has been recording Sophie."
Nobody moved.
Evan looked down at the tablet.
Then at the crib.
Then toward the tiny white camera mounted high in the corner near the ceiling.
His face tightened.
"We installed that ourselves."
Claire shook her head.
"I'm not talking about that one."
Imani followed her gaze.
Claire was looking at the carved wooden molding behind the crib.
"There was another device," she said.
Evan's voice was almost inaudible.
"Was?"
Claire nodded.
"The man in the video removed it."
Imani felt the room tilt beneath her.
"Who told you it was there?"
Claire looked at her.
"The same person who told me not to trust anyone on the household staff."
Imani stared at Claire long enough for the words to become insulting in more than one direction.
"Household staff means me."
"It means everyone who works here."
"That's convenient."
Claire's gaze sharpened.
"You think I wanted to believe it?"
"I think you believed it enough to hide evidence in a nursery drawer."
"I hid it because I didn't know who had access to the security office."
Evan lifted the tablet.
"Who told you the nursery was compromised?"
Claire looked at the closed door behind Imani, then at the ceiling, then finally at her husband.
"My father."
The answer changed Evan's face.
Not shock exactly.
Recognition.
A weariness that had apparently been waiting for the right name.
"Of course."
Claire flinched.
"You don't know what that means."
"I know exactly what it means."
"No, you know what you think it means."
Evan shifted Sophie to his other arm and stepped away from the cabinet.
"Your father told you someone was spying on our daughter, and you didn't tell me."
"He told me there might be an internal breach."
"In our house."
"Yes."
"In Sophie's room."
"Eventually, yes."
"And you kept it from me."
"He specifically told me not to involve you."
Evan gave a quiet laugh that held no amusement.
"That sounds like him."
Claire's voice rose half a degree.
"He had a reason."
"He always has a reason."
Imani watched the argument change shape in front of her.
For the first time, she was no longer its center.
That should have been a relief.
Instead it made her more uneasy.
Claire's hostility toward her had been immediate and comprehensible.
Whatever existed between Claire and her father was older, deeper, and apparently capable of placing strangers inside a child's bedroom at two in the morning.
Evan said, "What reason?"
Claire pressed her lips together.
"Someone accessed Dad's internal files using credentials tied to this property."
"What files?"
"Security audits."
"Of what?"
"Family residences."
Imani folded her arms.
"Including this house."
Claire looked at her.
"Yes."
Evan walked slowly toward the crib.
Sophie reached toward one of the wooden rails.
He let her touch it.
"What exactly was accessed?"
"Camera locations, alarm zones, staff schedules, entry logs."
Evan stopped moving.
"Staff schedules?"
Claire nodded.
"Mine?"
Imani asked.
Claire did not answer quickly enough.
"Mine," Imani repeated.
"Everyone's."
"That's not what I asked."
"Yes, yours."
Imani felt anger arrive before fear.
It was cleaner.
Easier to stand inside.
"So someone had my hours."
"Yes."
"My days off."
"Probably."
"Where I entered."
"Yes."
"How long have you known?"
Claire's expression tightened.
"Two weeks."
Imani laughed once.
"You let me keep coming here."
"I was trying to figure out who was involved."
"You thought I might be involved."
May you like
"I didn't know."
"You thought I might be helping someone watch your daughter, and you let me bathe her, feed her, take her to the park, put her down for naps."
