Chapter 1 - The Red Light
"Daddy, don't let Mom touch it."
The words came out of five-year-old Lily Carter in a broken whisper, but they stopped Daniel colder than a scream.
He had been home for less than twenty minutes.
One minute he was setting his keys on the kitchen counter after a three-day business trip. The next, he was kneeling on the carpet of Lily's bedroom while his daughter cried so hard her shoulders shook beneath her cream nightdress.
Claire stood in the doorway behind him, pale and rigid.
Daniel kept his voice low. "Sweetheart, what are you trying to show me?"
Lily pointed at the shelf across the room.
Stuffed animals sat in two neat rows: a gray elephant, a brown teddy bear, a fox, a faded rabbit. Daniel knew them all. He had bought most of them.
Lily wiped her cheeks with both hands. Then she crossed the room, reached between the elephant and the bear, and pulled out a framed photograph.
"I found this behind my toys."
Daniel took it.
The photograph showed Claire holding a little girl.
Not Lily.
The child looked about four, with dark curls and a yellow coat. Claire was younger in the picture, but there was no mistaking her.
Daniel's pulse changed.
"Claire?"
She moved too quickly.
"Give me that."
Her hand closed around the edge of the frame. Daniel tightened his grip.
"Who is the kid?"
"It's nothing. An old family picture."
"Then why was it hidden in Lily's room?"
Claire's mouth opened, but Lily tugged Daniel's sleeve.
"Daddy."
He looked down.
Lily was not looking at the photograph anymore. She was staring past him at the shelf.
Daniel followed her eyes.
Between the elephant's leg and the teddy bear's ear, something tiny and black caught the warm light.
A lens.
His breath stopped.
He stepped closer.
A pin-sized red light glowed.
Claire whispered, "Daniel, don't."
He turned slowly.
"You know what that is?"
Lily hugged her rabbit to her chest.
Her tears had stopped.
"It watches my room," she said.
Daniel reached toward the camera.
From somewhere inside the wall, a soft electronic click answered him.
Then the red light went dark.
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Daniel stayed frozen with his hand in the air. He had spent years reading financial records for a living, training himself not to react until he understood the numbers. But there were no numbers here. There was his daughter, barefoot on a rug, afraid of her own bedroom. There was his wife, standing ten feet away and looking less shocked than she should. He slipped the camera into his pocket and made a decision before anyone said another word: nobody was leaving Lily alone tonight.
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