Chapter 5 - The Camera Nobody Knew About
The next morning I unscrewed the baby monitor from its shelf. There was nothing unusual about it except a fresh scrape beside the memory-card slot. Someone had removed the card.
"Mom cleaned in here yesterday," I said.
Mara was changing Elsie at the dresser. She didn't turn around. "She made me stand in the hall while she did it."
The second camera was hidden inside a digital clock Mom had given us. Its lens was barely larger than a pinhead.
"Did you know?" I asked.
Mara shook her head. Her face drained of color.
I didn't unplug it until I'd photographed its position and serial number. A tiny status light was still on. A sticker on the bottom listed an app I'd never installed.
A digital evidence specialist documented the clock and preserved it. She warned that retrieving online footage would require proper access or legal process.
While we waited, Mara told me why she had started the notebook.
"She'd wake me up every hour," she said. "She'd take Elsie out of the bassinet, then bring her back crying and tell me I'd slept through her feeding. Some nights she hid the clean bottles. I started writing times down because I thought I was losing my mind."
I stared at her. She'd been pale and forgetful for weeks, sometimes unable to finish a sentence. Mom had explained it as evidence that Mara was falling apart. I had mistaken the damage for proof of Mom's story.
Our attorney, Sofia Bell, met us at a small office above a pharmacy. She didn't promise she could make Mom disappear. She asked us to describe exactly what had happened, preserve every original message, and stop confronting her without a witness.
"You have the right to make decisions for your daughter," Sofia said. "A suspicious form with a signature is not a magic key to custody. But false claims can create real trouble. We'll respond with facts."
She turned the blue folder over and pointed at the witness line.
May you like
I hadn't noticed it before.
The form said my signature had been witnessed by my younger sister, Dana.
