Chapter 4 - Thomas Recorded the Family First
The storage locker contained old videotapes, hard drives, financial
files, and notebooks belonging to Thomas Bennett.
The oldest recordings dated back nineteen years.
Ryan was a teenager.
His mother, Evelyn, was still alive.
Thomas had installed cameras after becoming convinced someone inside his
company was stealing from him.
At first, cameras covered only his office.
Then the hall.
Then the kitchen.
Then bedrooms.
The surveillance expanded with his suspicion.
Ryan felt sick watching old footage of his childhood.
His father had recorded arguments.
Private conversations.
Visitors.
Employees.
Everyone.
Vanessa admitted she discovered the archive after Thomas died.
“Why didn’t you destroy it?”
“Because I found something.”
She pointed to a tape dated six months before Evelyn’s fatal car crash.
Ryan froze.
His mother had died when he was seventeen.
The crash was ruled accidental.
Vanessa said the tape showed Evelyn speaking secretly with Thomas’s
business partner, Martin Cole.
Ryan immediately assumed an affair.
Vanessa shook her head.
“No.”
Evelyn was warning Martin.
Thomas had been moving company pension money into a private investment
vehicle.
Evelyn discovered it.
She wanted Martin to help stop him.
Ryan stared at the screen.
His mother said:
“If Thomas knows I copied the ledger, he’ll destroy it.”
Then she placed a small red notebook inside a wooden box.
The box looked familiar.
Claire recognized it.
It sat on the upstairs landing.
A decorative antique chest beside the staircase.
Vanessa whispered:
“That’s why I needed Noah away from the stairs.”
Claire’s face hardened.
“You pushed a baby because he got near a box?”
Vanessa cried.
“No. Because the box was open.”
Ryan looked toward the staircase.
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Someone had opened the antique chest that morning.
And whatever had been inside it was now missing.
