Chapter 3 - What the Camera MissedBy sunrise, Detective Lena Ortiz had secured Corinne's house. Ortiz was compact, unsmiling, and more interested in facts than Blair's rank.

Ortiz let Blair stand behind the marked line while technicians worked. One photographed the broken glass before lifting a single piece. Another sketched the distance between the poker and the table. Blair found herself wanting to tell them where to look, to make order out of the room as if it were a field exercise. Instead, she answered questions. She disclosed that she and Nolan had argued about his spending that month and that she had slept at the installation twice during training. Ortiz wrote it all down. The honesty felt uncomfortable, but hiding ordinary marital friction would only make her less credible later.

"Your mother's statement matters," Ortiz said. "So does physical evidence. Let's not get ahead of either."

"Agreed."

"Good. Then tell me why the front-door camera stopped recording at 1:58."

Blair opened the security app on her phone. The timeline jumped from 1:58 to 2:31. Someone had turned off the house router.

"Nolan knows the access code," she said.

"So do you and your mother."

"Yes."

Ortiz accepted the answer without comment. They walked the dining-room hallway. A display cabinet stood open. One velvet-lined drawer was empty.

"Did the blue folder go here?" Blair asked.

Corinne, seated on a dining chair with a neighbor beside her, shook her head. "No. That was for your father's watch."

Ortiz crouched. "Dust outlines. Someone removed a square box recently."

"Nolan took it to get repaired," Corinne said. "Two weeks ago."

Blair felt a chill. Nolan had told her the same story about the fireplace poker. Separate objects, same excuse.

At the foot of the staircase, Ortiz found a pale thread caught on a splinter. She bagged it, then photographed a faint smear on the banister.

"What is that?" Blair asked.

"We test before we guess."

Outside, reporters gathered because someone had leaked a military officer's name. Blair heard a camera shutter and saw Elise across the street, speaking into a phone.

Her screen flashed a new message from an unknown number.

STOP ASKING ABOUT THE WATCH.

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Below it was a photo of Blair entering the hospital fifteen minutes earlier.