Chapter 6 - Someone Was Watching

Emma told me not to throw the photographs away. She placed them in a clean folder and called a security consultant she trusted, a former investigator named Daniel Reyes.

"Could they just be paparazzi?" I asked.

"Paparazzi don't usually write messages on the backs of photographs," Daniel said when he arrived.

He checked the garden cameras, my car, and the gate logs. At 9:14 that morning a black sedan had entered under a vendor pass authorized by Nathan's office. The pass belonged to no active vendor.

Daniel treated the estate's security system like a witness with a poor memory. He asked the same questions in different ways, checked time stamps against delivery receipts, and refused to call any suspicion a fact until it survived a second look. His steadiness helped. Nathan's charm had always made certainty feel contagious; Daniel made patience feel possible. We learned the vendor pass had been renewed twice from an internal account, and that the camera covering the west corridor had been pointed toward the ceiling for three days. Somebody was not merely visiting the property. Somebody had been preparing it. I wrote down every anomaly because I was afraid I would later doubt my own recollection.

Nathan found us studying the screen. "Why is a stranger in our security room?"

"Because someone followed me to a doctor," I said.

His anger changed shape. "What doctor?"

"That's not the important part."

"It is if you're hiding something from me."

Emma stood between us. "You're not entitled to her medical records."

Nathan glanced at the photographs, then away. The movement was tiny, but Daniel noticed it too.

"Do you know this car?" Daniel asked.

"No."

"You answered before you looked at the plate."

Nathan slammed a hand against the table. "I'm tired of being treated like a criminal in my own home."

"It's not your home," I said quietly. "You keep forgetting that."

He walked out. Daniel saved the footage to two encrypted drives.

Later, from the kitchen doorway, I heard Nathan arguing with Vanessa over speakerphone.

"I told you to leave Claire alone," he hissed.

Vanessa laughed. "Then stop pretending I work for you."

A pause.

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"If she finds the ledger," Vanessa said, "she'll know what you did the night your father died."