Chapter 6 - The Camera
The police called the garage incident “possibly intentional.”
Possibly.
I hated that word.
By noon, Daniel had hired private security. By one, Charles had called me seven times. I ignored all seven.
At two, I returned to Kingsley House with Rebecca and a security consultant named Marcus Lee.
Marcus was former federal law enforcement, late forties, quiet, observant.
He walked the ballroom once and pointed to a brass smoke detector above the west arch.
“That is not a smoke detector.”
Daniel looked up. “What?”
Marcus brought over a ladder.
Inside the casing was a camera.
Not part of the house system.
We found six more.
One faced the dining room.
One faced the upstairs landing.
One faced the study Charles used almost every day.
And one was hidden in the hallway outside Daniel’s and my bedroom.
I felt sick.
“How long?” I asked.
Marcus examined the wiring. “Could be years.”
Daniel punched the wall.
“Who has access?”
“We’ll trace it.”
Charles entered without knocking.
He stopped when he saw the camera on the table.
For once, I believed his shock.
“What is that?”
“Your family’s idea of privacy,” I said.
He looked at Daniel. “You put cameras in my house?”
“My house,” I corrected.
Charles’s face hardened automatically, then softened when he remembered the deed.
Marcus held up a small black transmitter. “This system uploads remotely.”
Charles poured himself water. “Grant.”
The certainty in his voice made everyone look at him.
“You know something,” Daniel said.
Charles sat down.
Twenty-nine years of arrogance seemed to collapse in his shoulders.
“Grant’s father, my brother Thomas, believed Margaret cheated him out of the company.”
Rebecca frowned. “Margaret rescued the company.”
“Yes. Thomas hated her for having the power to do it.”
“What does that have to do with Grant?” I asked.
“Thomas died telling his son the Hart family stole what belonged to the Whitmores.”
Marcus’s phone buzzed.
He checked the screen.
“We traced the camera server.”
Daniel stepped closer. “To Grant?”
Marcus shook his head.
“No.”
He turned the phone toward me.
The account was registered under a name I had not seen since I was ten years old.
Laura Hart.
May you like
My mother.
The woman who had been dead for twenty-two years.
