Chapter 8 - The Third Camera
There were three cameras in the kitchen, but only two appeared in Nora's export.
"The third camera was supposed to face the back door," I told her. "It's above the refrigerator."
Nora opened her installation records. "That camera wasn't part of the same service plan. Brandon bought it separately and asked me to connect the wiring."
"Where did it send footage?"
"A local recorder in the utility closet. I warned him that local storage was easy to tamper with. He said he preferred privacy."
We couldn't enter the house to retrieve it without an agreement or lawful authority. My name was on the deed, but Brandon was still living there and the police were already investigating. Daniel wanted a preservation order instead of an argument at the front door.
"I don't have days," I said.
"We can ask for expedited relief. But we don't break into our own evidence and hand their lawyer a reason to attack it."
That afternoon I listened to a voicemail Dad had left me two months before he died. I hadn't played it in a year.
"Abby, you know I trust your judgment. That's why the trust isn't built to protect you from yourself. It's built to protect you from anyone who tries to decide for you. Call me when you have time."
I had never called back. He died of a heart attack three weeks later, and the missed call had become another small room I refused to enter.
Marisol sat beside me without speaking.
Finally I said, "I kept trying to prove I wasn't the problem. Maybe that's exactly the argument they wanted."
"Then stop defending your sanity and start proving their actions."
Nora's phone lit up with a message from a colleague checking the security service dashboard. She read it twice.
"Someone accessed the local recorder remotely at 2:06 this morning," she said. "From a device registered to your husband."
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"Did he delete the file?"
"No," Nora answered. "He copied it to an external drive."
