Chapter 2 - Someone Was Watching
Daniel pulled the tiny camera from the shelf and stared at it in his palm.
No brand. No visible memory card. Just a matte-black cube the size of a coin, warm from running.
"Who put this here?" he asked.
Claire folded her arms. "I don't know."
"You just told me not to touch it."
"Because Lily is upset. I didn't want you making this worse."
Daniel laughed once, without humor. "A hidden camera in our daughter's bedroom is already worse."
Lily flinched.
He immediately softened and knelt again. "Hey. Not at you. Never at you."
She nodded but did not smile.
"How long has it been there?"
Lily looked toward her mother first.
That glance bothered Daniel more than the camera.
"I don't know," Lily said. "It blinks at night."
"At night?"
"Sometimes the lady talks."
Claire's face drained of color.
Daniel turned. "What lady?"
Lily hugged the rabbit tighter. "From the wall."
Daniel stood so fast his knee hit the toy chest.
"Show me."
Lily walked to the headboard and pointed at a white noise machine on the nightstand. Daniel had bought it before Lily started preschool. It played rain sounds and soft static.
He unplugged it.
The static stopped.
Then, half a second later, a woman's voice came from inside it.
"Lily?"
Claire gasped.
Daniel froze.
The voice crackled again. "Are you awake?"
Lily covered her ears.
Daniel grabbed the machine, flipped it over, and found a second wire running through a narrow hole drilled in the back panel of the nightstand.
The hole led into the wall.
"Daniel," Claire said, "don't tear the room apart."
"Why? Afraid I'll find the rest?"
"I am afraid you'll scare her."
"She's already scared."
He yanked the drawer free.
Behind it, taped beneath the wooden frame, was a black transmitter with a green indicator light.
A small label was stuck to the back.
Daniel read the handwritten letters twice.
C-2.
He looked at the camera in his other hand.
On its underside, almost invisible beneath a strip of tape, was another label.
C-1.
Two devices.
Numbered.
Daniel stared at the wall.
If there was a C-1 and a C-2, there could be a C-3.
Then Lily whispered, "Daddy, there are more."
May you like
Daniel's stomach tightened. He thought of every night he had kissed her forehead and closed the door. Every business trip. Every morning Claire had told him Lily slept fine. He looked at the ceiling vent, the smoke detector, the picture frames, the lamp. Ordinary objects became possible eyes. The worst part was Lily watching him search them, as if she had been waiting for an adult to finally notice what she had already learned to fear.
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