Chapter 3 - The Camera With No Power
I took the blue bowl outside and threw it into the trash hard enough to crack it.
Vanessa followed me. "You are being theatrical."
"I'm trying not to be violent with a plastic bowl. That's the only favor I'm doing you right now."
"Listen to yourself."
I turned. "How long?"
She crossed her arms. "How long what?"
"How long have you been punishing her like this?"
"I have never hurt Ella."
From behind me, Ella said, "You lock the pantry."
Vanessa went white.
I turned back to my daughter. "When?"
"When I cry too loud."
I called Dr. Patel, Ella's pediatrician, and told him we were coming in. Then I called my attorney, Laura Chen, and told her I needed her tonight.
Vanessa laughed once. "You're calling a lawyer because a child had a tantrum?"
"I'm calling a lawyer because my wife had my eight-year-old kneeling over dog food with a false statement about me beside her."
I started toward the security panel in my study.
Vanessa followed. "The cameras won't prove anything."
I stopped.
"I didn't ask if they would."
That was her second mistake.
Our home system stored thirty days of motion footage from the kitchen, foyer, hallways, garage, and exterior doors. I opened the app.
The kitchen camera was offline.
So was the hallway camera outside Ella's room.
Both had stopped recording six days after I left for Chicago.
I checked the system log.
Manual disconnect.
User: ADMIN 2.
There were only two admin accounts.
Mine.
And Vanessa's.
She stood in the doorway behind me.
"The system has been glitching," she said.
I looked at the timestamp.
2:13 a.m.
Then I saw something else.
May you like
Five minutes before the cameras went dark, the foyer camera had captured Vanessa carrying a cardboard box toward my office.
Written across the box was the name of my late wife's law firm.
