Chapter 3 - THE CAMERA UNDER SOPHIE’S BED
It was not one of mine.
That mattered.
My security system was extensive.
Exterior cameras.
Main entrances.
Common corridors.
No bedrooms.
No bathrooms.
No private child spaces.
The device Grace found was different.
Small.
Battery-powered.
Wireless.
Hidden inside the base of a decorative night-light near Sophie’s bookshelf.
Marcus placed it on the kitchen table inside an evidence bag.
I stared.
“How long?”
Grace answered.
“I found it six nights ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell security?”
Her eyes moved toward Vanessa.
Then toward me.
“Because I didn’t know who I could trust.”
That hurt.
Fair.
---
Our head of household security, Daniel Kerr, had worked for me for nine years.
I trusted him.
Or thought I did.
Grace continued:
“The first night I started here, Sophie woke up around midnight.”
“She was crying.”
“I went to check on her.”
Grace looked uncomfortable.
“She asked me whether I was going to tell Miss Vanessa she had said her mother’s name.”
My stomach turned.
“What?”
“She said Vanessa didn’t allow them to talk about Mrs. Whitaker after bedtime.”
I closed my eyes.
Claire.
My late wife.
Sophie and Caleb’s mother.
Four years gone.
Still present in photographs.
Stories.
The rabbit she had bought before Caleb was born.
I had made one promise after Claire died:
My children would never be told grief was disloyal.
Apparently Vanessa had broken that when I wasn’t home.
---
Grace said:
“Sophie told me she gets punished for talking about her mother.”
“What punishment?”
“She loses lights.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Grace looked toward the hallway.
“She has to sleep with the bedroom lights off.”
I almost laughed from confusion.
“She normally sleeps with a night-light.”
“Yes.”
Then I understood.
Sophie had become afraid of darkness after Claire died.
Not dramatically.
Just enough that we always left a small amber lamp on.
Vanessa knew.
Of course she knew.
She had once called it adorable.
Grace whispered:
“Vanessa turns everything off and closes the door.”
I stared.
“She tells Sophie big girls who want Daddy’s respect don’t act like babies.”
Something inside me broke.
Quietly.
---
“And Caleb?”
Grace’s eyes filled.
“She takes his rabbit.”
I looked toward the living room.
Caleb was asleep against Marcus’s shoulder, rabbit trapped beneath his chin.
The torn ear.
Blue thread.
Claire had repaired that ear herself.
Two days before she entered the hospital for the final time.
Vanessa knew that too.
---
Grace continued:
“I started sleeping outside their rooms because they were scared at night.”
“Why not call me?”
She looked at me.
Then said something I deserved.
“Because they were scared of you too.”
Silence.
Grace swallowed.
“Sophie said if she told you, you’d send her away.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was again.
Vanessa had weaponized my name.
Not my violence.
My absence.
My reputation.
The fact that people believed Evan Whitaker could make anyone disappear.
Apparently my children believed it too.
---
Marcus touched the evidence bag.
“And this?”
Grace nodded toward the camera.
“I noticed the light was new.”
“I asked Sophie where it came from.”
“She said Vanessa put it there.”
Vanessa claimed it helped monitor nightmares.
Maybe.
Except the device was not connected to our household network.
It transmitted somewhere else.
Marcus said:
“We’ll let digital forensics handle it.”
Good.
No dramatic laptop hacking.
No assumptions.
Records.
Chain of custody.
Facts.
---
Then Grace said:
“There’s another one.”
My head lifted.
“Where?”
“Caleb’s room.”
May you like
Everything inside me went cold.
---
