Chapter 5 - Someone Was Inside the House
Ethan did not let Sarah move.
The moment she showed him the message, he pressed the silent security alarm beside the nursery door.
“Stay with Leo.”
“What about you?”
“Stay.”
Normally Sarah would have argued.
This time she looked at the photograph again.
Taken from inside the house.
Not worth arguing.
Ethan stepped into the hall as security converged from both staircases.
The house locked down.
Doors sealed.
Exterior lights came on.
Detective Ortiz arrived twenty-five minutes later.
They searched every room.
No intruder.
No broken window.
No forced entry.
The photograph metadata had been stripped.
“Could it be old?” Ortiz asked.
Sarah shook her head.
“I changed into this cardigan after dinner.”
Ethan said, “And that box wasn’t in the hall until six.”
So someone had been there.
Or a hidden camera still was.
Security swept the east wing.
They found one in a smoke detector.
Tiny.
Wireless.
Not part of the Blackwood system.
Then another in the library.
Another near the kitchen.
Three cameras.
Installed recently.
Ethan looked furious.
“Who had access?”
“Staff,” the security chief said. “Contractors. Ms. Crane. Her assistant. Floral people last month. Caterers.”
“Everyone.”
“Pretty much.”
Ortiz studied the devices.
“Professional installation.”
Sarah asked, “What were they recording?”
“Whatever happened in their view.”
“Why?”
Ortiz looked at Ethan.
“Blackmail. Surveillance. Planning. Pick one.”
The nursery itself had no hidden camera.
That was almost comforting.
Until the technician found something in the baby monitor.
A second user profile.
No name.
Administrator privileges.
Created four months earlier.
The profile could disable recording indicators without disabling recording.
In other words, someone could make the system appear offline while still capturing video.
Sarah thought of the missing clip.
“Can it restore deleted footage?”
“Maybe.”
They imaged the device.
At ten-thirty, Victoria called Ethan.
He did not answer.
She called again.
Then texted.
I KNOW YOU THINK I’M A MONSTER.
Another.
SARAH IS USING YOUR GRIEF.
Another.
ASK HER WHY SHE REALLY TOOK THIS JOB.
Ethan showed Sarah.
She stared.
“I took this job because Colleen’s replacement agency called me.”
“Did you know my family before?”
“No.”
“Did you know Amelia?”
“No.”
“Victoria is trying to provoke you.”
“I know.”
Then Sarah’s phone buzzed.
Different unknown number.
A scanned document.
Her job application.
At the bottom, a handwritten note:
PRIORITY PLACEMENT. APPROVED BY A.B.
Sarah frowned.
“A.B.?”
Ethan looked.
“Amelia Blackwood.”
Sarah stared at him.
“That’s impossible.”
“Unless she arranged your placement before she died.”
“I applied six months after.”
Ortiz asked for the agency records.
The owner of Premier Domestic Staffing was a woman named Celeste Warren.
She initially refused to cooperate.
A subpoena changed her mind.
Celeste admitted Amelia had contacted her during pregnancy.
“She wanted a list of household workers with medical or child-development training,” Celeste said over video.
Sarah looked confused.
“I have pediatric aide training.”
“Yes.”
“But I never met Mrs. Blackwood.”
“No.”
“Why my file?”
“Amelia reviewed several profiles. Yours was one.”
“When?”
“Fourteen months ago.”
Before Leo was born.
Before Amelia died.
Sarah felt strange.
“Why?”
“She said if anything happened to her, she wanted Mr. Blackwood to have options.”
Ethan looked away.
Celeste continued.
“After Mrs. Blackwood died, Victoria Crane contacted me.”
Everyone looked up.
“What did she want?” Ortiz asked.
“She asked for the candidate list.”
“Did you give it?”
“No.”
“Then how did Sarah get placed?”
Celeste hesitated.
“That is the part I don’t understand.”
“What?”
“Someone accessed our archived system using Amelia’s referral code and selected Sarah’s profile.”
“After Amelia died?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Six days before Sarah was hired.”
Silence.
Sarah said, “Who had the code?”
“Mrs. Blackwood. Possibly her attorney.”
Ethan looked at Graham Keene.
Graham’s face tightened.
“I did not.”
Ortiz said, “We’ll verify.”
The mystery deepened.
Sarah had believed she came to the Blackwood house by chance.
Now it looked as though someone had chosen her.
That night, she refused Ethan’s offer to place her in a hotel.
“If someone chose me for this house, I want to know why.”
“You are not an investigator.”
“Neither are you.”
“I’m paying investigators.”
“Congratulations.”
He almost smiled.
She added, “I’m not staying in the nursery alone.”
“Agreed.”
They moved Leo’s crib into Ethan’s bedroom temporarily.
Security placed a chair outside.
Sarah slept in a guest room across the hall.
At 2:17 a.m., Leo began crying.
Sarah woke instantly.
She crossed the hall.
Ethan was already holding him.
“He’s warm.”
Sarah touched Leo’s forehead.
Fever.
Dr. Grant came again.
Ear infection.
Ordinary.
Treatable.
Nothing sinister.
Sarah nearly cried from relief that something could still be ordinary.
After medication, Leo settled against Ethan’s chest.
Sarah sat on the edge of a chair.
Ethan whispered, “He trusts you more than me.”
“No.”
“He reaches for you.”
“I’m here more.”
“That’s the problem.”
“No. The problem is you think love is measured by hours.”
He looked at her.
“What is it measured by?”
“What you do when you’re there.”
The words stayed between them.
At three, the security technician called.
The hidden administrator profile had a recovery email.
Not Victoria.
Not Martin Crane.
Not Malcolm Crane.
The address belonged to someone named [email protected].
Ethan stared.
“That was not my wife’s email.”
Ortiz traced the account.
It had been created three days after Amelia’s funeral.
Then used from multiple locations.
One login stood out.
A hospice facility outside Philadelphia.
Sarah frowned.
“Who was there?”
The technician checked public records.
The facility had one private-pay resident registered under initials only.
A.B.
Ethan stopped breathing.
“What are the initials?”
The technician looked at him.
“A.B.”
Sarah whispered, “Amelia Blackwood?”
Ethan shook his head.
“No.”
But his voice did not sound certain anymore.
The next morning, Detective Ortiz drove to the hospice.
Room 214 was empty.
The resident had checked out forty-eight hours earlier.
The staff member who signed the release form remembered a tall blonde woman.
“Name?” Ortiz asked.
The nurse checked the form.
“Victoria Crane.”
May you like
And suddenly the woman who had frightened Leo was connected not only to the dead mother’s password.
She was connected to someone living under the dead mother’s initials.
