Chapter 5 - Someone Was Watching
Michael met Thomas in an unused family consultation room on the hospital’s third floor.
Thomas had brought an encrypted laptop.
He locked the door.
Then he turned the screen toward Michael.
The folder contained forty-six files.
Each file had a date.
The oldest was from nine months earlier.
The newest was from the previous night.
Michael clicked the first video.
His bedroom appeared.
The camera angle came from somewhere near the ceiling.
Emily entered wearing pajamas.
Michael appeared behind her.
He shut the bedroom door.
Michael immediately stopped the video.
His face burned.
“How?”
Thomas shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Michael opened another.
The kitchen.
Another.
His office.
Another.
Mason’s bedroom.
Michael slammed the laptop shut.
“Turn it off.”
Thomas sat silently.
Michael stood.
His hands trembled.
“They filmed my son.”
“Yes.”
“Who made these?”
“We’re checking metadata.”
Michael walked to the wall.
Then he remembered the flash drive had been hidden inside Emily’s father’s clock.
“Emily knew.”
“Possibly.”
Michael returned upstairs.
Emily was awake.
Mason was asleep in the chair beside her.
Michael quietly closed the door.
“You knew about the cameras.”
Emily did not pretend otherwise.
“I discovered one.”
“In our bedroom?”
“No.”
“Mason’s room?”
Her eyes sharpened.
“What?”
Michael understood.
Emily had not known everything.
“There are cameras throughout the house.”
Emily stared at him.
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
Michael pulled the chair closer.
“The flash drive Mason found contains recordings.”
Emily covered her mouth.
“They recorded Mason?”
“Yes.”
Emily’s eyes filled with tears.
“Who?”
“We’re trying to find out.”
Emily looked toward her sleeping son.
Michael lowered his voice.
“You hid the flash drive.”
“I hid one flash drive.”
Michael frowned.
“One?”
Emily nodded.
“The one I found came from the camera in your office.”
“This drive has forty-six recordings.”
Emily looked confused.
“That isn’t mine.”
Michael’s pulse jumped.
“Then who hid it?”
They looked at Mason.
Neither spoke.
Michael stood.
“No.”
Emily whispered.
“The clock belonged to my father.”
“So?”
“He taught Mason how to open the secret compartment.”
Michael stared at her.
“When?”
“Before Dad died.”
Mason had been five.
Michael tried to process that.
“Maybe Mason found the drive.”
Emily shook her head.
“He would have told me.”
“Then who else knew about the compartment?”
Emily thought.
“My father.”
“He’s dead.”
“My mother.”
“She lives in Oregon.”
“And me.”
Michael waited.
Emily’s face changed.
“There was one other person.”
“Who?”
“My father’s attorney.”
“What attorney?”
“Jonathan Price.”
Michael knew the name.
Jonathan had handled Emily’s family trust.
He had also disappeared from public life almost a year earlier.
“I thought Jonathan retired.”
Emily shook her head.
“He vanished.”
Michael frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“No one has heard from him since last December.”
A knock interrupted them.
Thomas entered.
His expression was grim.
“We traced one of the cameras.”
Michael stood.
“To whom?”
“It was purchased through a Carter Dynamics procurement account.”
Michael’s stomach dropped.
“Daniel?”
“No.”
Thomas placed a printed authorization record on the table.
Michael looked at the name.
SOPHIA CARTER.
Emily exhaled slowly.
Michael picked up the page.
“So she installed them.”
Thomas shook his head.
“Maybe.”
“What do you mean, maybe?”
“The purchase was made using her credentials.”
Michael stared at him.
“But the shipping address wasn’t Sophia’s.”
Thomas slid another page forward.
The equipment had been delivered to a storage unit.
The renter’s name was Jonathan Price.
Emily sat upright despite the pain.
“That’s impossible.”
Michael looked at her.
Thomas continued.
“There’s more.”
He opened the laptop.
“The newest video was recorded last night.”
Michael’s house appeared.
Sophia walked into his office.
Then another figure entered behind her.
A man.
Michael leaned closer.
The man turned slightly.
Emily gasped.
May you like
Michael froze.
The man on the screen was Jonathan Price.
