Chapter 3 - SOMEONE WAS WATCHING
Detective Ortiz took my phone from my hand before I could enlarge the photograph.
“Don’t respond.”
She summoned two officers, and within seconds the hallway outside the interview room filled with movement. Doors opened. Radios crackled. Someone ordered the front entrance locked while another officer checked the station’s rear parking lot.
Emily watched everything with wide eyes.
“Are we in trouble?” she asked.
“No,” I said immediately. “Someone is trying to scare us.”
“Is it Grandma?”
I wanted to say yes.
Blaming Patricia would have made the danger feel contained. One woman. One house. One set of terrible decisions.
But Patricia was already inside the station.
Someone else had taken that photograph.
Detective Ortiz examined the message.
“It came through a masked internet number. We’ll request emergency subscriber information, but it may have been routed through multiple services.”
“Can they see us now?”
“Possibly.”
I looked toward the narrow window in the interview room door. An officer pulled down the blind.
Emily crawled into my lap even though she had not done that in years.
The door opened again.
Daniel entered.
His face was red with anger.
“What’s going on?”
Ortiz showed him the threatening message.
He stared at the photograph.
Then he looked at me.
“Who did you tell we were here?”
I could not believe the question.
“No one.”
“You post everything online, Rachel.”
“I haven’t posted anything today.”
“Maybe one of your friends—”
“Someone hid a phone beneath our daughter’s changing stall, Daniel. Someone tried to erase it. Now someone is photographing us through a police station window, and your first instinct is still to blame me?”
Emily flinched at the sharpness in my voice.
I lowered it immediately.
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
“I’m trying to understand.”
“No. You’re trying to find an explanation that doesn’t involve your mother.”
“My mother may have been manipulated.”
Ortiz closed the interview-room door.
“Mr. Whitmore, we need to ask you several questions.”
“Am I under investigation?”
“That depends on your answers.”
He gave a bitter laugh.
“This is insane.”
“Did you access the hidden phone remotely?”
“No.”
“Did you know your mother maintained a second phone?”
“No.”
“Did you remove equipment from her basement?”
“No.”
“Do you know anyone named Warren?”
Daniel’s eyes shifted.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
Ortiz saw it too.
“Who is Warren?”
“No one.”
“You reacted to the name.”
“I didn’t.”
“Daniel,” I said. “Tell her.”
He looked at Emily and then at the detective.
“My mother dated someone named Warren years ago.”
“How many years?”
“Before we got married. Maybe twelve or thirteen.”
“What was his last name?”
“I don’t remember.”
“That’s not believable,” I said.
He shot me a warning look.
“We didn’t discuss him.”
I remembered Patricia’s lake house, the framed family photographs in the hallway, the Christmas dinners where she spoke endlessly about neighbors, politicians, former employees, and women from church.
In fifteen years, she had never mentioned dating a man named Warren.
“Did you meet him?” Ortiz asked.
“A few times.”
“Describe him.”
Daniel leaned against the wall.
“White. Mid-fifties back then. Dark hair. Tall.”
“What did he do?”
“Something involving computers. Security systems, maybe.”
Ortiz stopped writing.
“Why did the relationship end?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did your mother remain in contact with him?”
“No idea.”
“Did he ever come to your house?”
Daniel’s face tightened.
“What house?”
“The home you share with Rachel and Emily.”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
A memory surfaced.
Two months earlier, I had returned home from work and found a white utility van parked across the street. A man had been standing near our mailbox. When I asked if he needed help, he said he was checking internet connections.
I had forgotten about him until that moment.
“Daniel,” I said, “who installed the new security system?”
He looked at me.
“What?”
“The cameras you put in last winter. You said a friend of your mother’s gave you a discount.”
“That was a company.”
“What company?”
“I’d have to check.”
Ortiz stepped closer.
“When was the system installed?”
“January.”
“Who has administrative access?”
“I do.”
“Anyone else?”
“The installer, probably.”
A cold sensation traveled down my spine.
The station photograph had been taken from outside. But suddenly I was thinking about cameras inside my house.
Our front door.
The hallway.
The kitchen.
Emily’s playroom.
“Are there cameras in Emily’s bedroom?” Ortiz asked.
“No,” Daniel said.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
I was no longer certain of anything.
Ortiz arranged for a cybercrimes technician to meet us at our house. We were taken through a private exit and driven home in an unmarked police SUV.
Daniel came separately.
When we reached our street, two patrol cars were already parked outside. Neighbors watched from windows as officers entered our home.
Emily refused to leave my side.
A technician named Malik inspected the security panel while another officer photographed every camera. Daniel paced near the kitchen island, insisting the entire process was unnecessary.
After twenty minutes, Malik called Ortiz over.
“This system has three administrator accounts.”
Daniel stopped pacing.
“That’s impossible.”
Malik turned the screen toward him.
“One is registered to your email. One appears to belong to the installation company. The third has no identifying name.”
“Delete it,” I said.
“Not yet,” Ortiz replied. “We need to preserve evidence.”
“Can that person watch us?”
Malik nodded.
“They’ve accessed the system remotely twenty-seven times this month.”
Emily buried her face against my side.
“Which cameras?” I asked.
“The front door, living room, kitchen, upstairs hallway, and playroom.”
“Not her bedroom?”
“No camera is listed there.”
Relief lasted less than three seconds.
Malik looked toward the staircase.
“But there’s an active device connected to the network that doesn’t appear in the security inventory.”
We followed him upstairs.
The signal strengthened outside Emily’s bedroom.
Daniel blocked the doorway.
“There is no camera in there.”
Ortiz moved past him.
Malik used a handheld scanner, checking the smoke detector, the alarm clock, and the lamp. The device continued beeping.
Finally, he approached a row of stuffed animals on the shelf.
Emily’s favorite stuffed rabbit sat in the center. Patricia had given it to her on her eighth birthday.
Malik lifted the rabbit.
The scanner screamed.
He turned the toy over and carefully opened a seam beneath its tail.
Inside was a tiny black camera with a memory card and wireless transmitter.
Emily made a sound that did not seem human.
I pulled her against me.
Daniel stared at the device.
“No,” he whispered.
Ortiz placed it into an evidence bag.
“When did your mother give Emily this toy?”
“Three months ago,” I said.
Daniel sank onto the edge of the bed.
“My mother wouldn’t…”
His voice trailed off.
Emily looked at him with tears streaming down her face.
“She did.”
An officer called from downstairs.
Detective Ortiz went to the hallway railing.
“What is it?”
“We located the installer information.”
“And?”
“The security company doesn’t exist.”
A second officer appeared behind him holding a document taken from Daniel’s desk.
“There’s more. The service contract was paid from a joint account belonging to Daniel and Patricia Whitmore.”
I turned toward my husband.
“You paid for this?”
Daniel stood abruptly.
“I didn’t know what it was.”
His phone rang.
Everyone looked at it.
The screen displayed MOM.
Patricia was still in custody. Her personal phone had been seized.
Ortiz motioned for Daniel to answer on speaker.
He pressed the button.
“Hello?”
A man’s voice came through the phone.
Calm. Older. Almost amused.
“You should have controlled your wife.”
Daniel went white.
“Warren?”
The man ignored him.
“Tell Rachel that what happened at the mall was unfortunate. Patricia became careless.”
I stepped forward.
“Where are the other children?”
A pause.
Then he laughed softly.
“You’re asking the wrong question.”
“What question should I ask?”
“How long has your husband known?”
May you like
The call ended.
Every face in the room turned toward Daniel.
