Chapter 4 - THE CAMERA THEY FORGOT
My heartbeat accelerated.
I typed with trembling fingers.
What camera?
Rachel responded immediately.
Uncle Richard installed cameras after someone stole wine from the basement last year.
One points toward the stairwell.
I stared at the screen.
Every detail of that dinner returned at once.
The recessed lights.
The framed landscape beside the basement door.
A tiny blue reflection near the ceiling that I had noticed without thinking.
A camera.
The entire time, there had been a camera.
Detective Ortiz read Rachel’s message.
“Whose account controls it?”
“I don’t know.”
Rachel answered before I could ask.
Graham set the system up for them.
The app is on his phone.
I felt physically sick.
That explained the frantic typing.
Graham had not just been coordinating stories.
He might have been deleting evidence.
Detective Ortiz stepped into the hallway.
I heard only fragments of her conversation with another officer.
“Preserve.”
“Cloud account.”
“Possible deletion.”
“Get consent or warrant.”
When she returned, her face had hardened.
“Your husband left the hospital.”
“Where did he go?”
“We’re trying to determine that.”
My fear became immediate.
“Judith’s house.”
Ortiz looked at me.
“What makes you think that?”
“Because that’s where the recording system is.”
She was already reaching for her phone.
Two patrol officers were dispatched to Judith’s address.
By then, it was nearly two in the morning.
I should have been exhausted.
Instead, I felt painfully awake.
Twenty-six minutes later, Ortiz received a call.
She listened.
Then her gaze shifted toward me.
“What happened?”
“Your husband is there.”
My chest tightened.
“Did he delete it?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Ortiz continued listening.
Then she asked whoever was on the line to photograph everything.
When the call ended, she sat down.
“The recording from approximately six until nine tonight is missing from the local storage.”
I felt my stomach drop.
“So he deleted it.”
“We cannot say that yet.”
“But somebody did.”
“Yes.”
I turned my face toward the rain-covered window.
He had driven me to the emergency room.
He had watched nurses cut my sweater away.
He had seen me struggle to breathe.
Then while I was lying in a hospital bed, he had apparently been worrying about protecting the woman responsible.
Ortiz’s phone buzzed again.
She read the message.
Then something in her expression changed.
“What?”
“The system automatically logs administrator activity.”
I waited.
“At 11:42 p.m., someone accessed the camera account remotely.”
My mouth went dry.
“Whose login?”
She looked directly at me.
“Graham’s.”
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And suddenly, my husband was no longer standing beside the person who had hurt me.
He was standing between the truth and anyone who might discover it.
