Chapter 2 - THE CAMERA THAT WENT BLIND
By four o’clock, I knew the house had lied to me.
Not the people.
The systems.
Ravenwood had thirty-eight interior cameras, twelve exterior cameras, motion sensors, door logs, and enough redundant storage to reconstruct a servant dropping a spoon two weeks earlier.
Yet the hallway outside my study showed eleven missing minutes.
Exactly eleven.
I called no one from security.
Not yet.
Instead, I went downstairs to the laundry room where Mara Carter was folding towels while Emma sat beneath the table arranging clothespins around her stuffed rabbit.
Mara looked up.
“Mr. Moretti?”
“Did Vivien ask Emma to stay upstairs today?”
Her hands stopped.
“No.”
“Has Emma mentioned the study before?”
Mara glanced at her daughter.
Emma whispered, “Aunt Vivien goes there when Bunny hides.”
Mara’s face drained.
“How many times, sweetheart?”
Emma counted on her fingers.
“Three.”
Vivien had entered my private study at least three times.
I thanked Mara and told her to take Emma to the guest cottage for the evening.
Mara’s fear sharpened.
“Are we in danger?”
“No.”
It was not entirely true.
But they would be safer away from the main house.
Then I went to the security room.
I did not ask why the footage was missing.
I asked for system access logs.
My chief of security, Paolo, watched me carefully.
“You think someone inside did it?”
“I think someone knew exactly where to touch the system.”
The missing footage had been removed through an executive override.
User ID:
M.MORETTI.
I stared at the screen.
Paolo said nothing.
He knew the name.
Everyone who had worked for my family longer than six years knew it.
Marco Moretti.
My older brother.
My father’s first son.
The man who had died in a boating explosion off Long Island seven years earlier.
His body was never recovered.
His credentials had been disabled after the funeral.
Yet someone had reactivated them nine weeks ago.
“Who approved reactivation?” I asked.
Paolo pulled the audit chain.
The request came from my own executive account.
My biometric token had authenticated it at 2:18 a.m.
I was in Chicago that night.
I had hotel footage proving it.
Someone had duplicated my access.
I ordered Paolo to mirror every system log without alerting the administrator.
Then another detail appeared.
Marco’s resurrected credentials had opened only three things.
The study cameras.
The family trust archive.
And the digital file containing my marriage license.
I looked at Paolo.
“Who accessed the paper marriage documents?”
He searched.
Then slowly looked up.
“Your father’s old attorney.”
“Samuel Vale?”
Paolo nodded.
Samuel had retired five years ago.
And according to my records, he had died last winter.
Two dead men had entered my systems in nine weeks.
Then Paolo opened the last access event.
The login location was not outside Ravenwood.
It came from inside the house.
May you like
From a room on the second floor.
Vivien’s bedroom.
