Chapter 6 - Eighteen Minutes Without Cameras
When I finally returned to the mansion, the first thing I noticed was the absence of noise.
The fountains in the garden still ran, the tall windows still caught the afternoon sun, and the same expensive paintings hung beside the staircase.
But the hallway where Celeste had chased me had been cordoned off while evidence was documented, and the familiar house felt almost respectfully silent.
My left knee was stiff beneath its dressing, and I leaned more heavily on the railing than I used to.
Dad insisted I move slowly, while Noah carried the bag that held my medications and a few books from the hospital.
Marcus met us near the entrance with Owen and a uniformed technician named Nate Alvarez, who worked for the independent security company that maintained the system.
The technician had reviewed maintenance records from the previous evening and identified an eighteen-minute interruption affecting several upstairs hallway cameras.
It did not automatically prove tampering, he explained, because power failures and network faults could resemble intentional changes.
But an administrative request to suspend recording had been entered shortly before the interruption.
The account associated with that request belonged to a former domestic operations manager, whom Dad had dismissed months earlier when Celeste insisted on hiring her own replacement.
Marcus looked angry with himself.
He had assumed routine household technology remained protected because it had always worked before.
Instead, administrative privileges had lingered after a staff change, and someone had taken advantage of the weakness.
Dad told the company to preserve its audit logs and to work with detectives rather than speculate about who had used the credentials.
I appreciated the caution even though impatience burned beneath my skin.
We needed evidence that would survive scrutiny, not an exciting theory that collapsed when examined.
Nate explained that the system stored some clips locally as well as in a secured service account.
That meant a gap in one record did not necessarily erase every relevant recording, but he would not promise a recovery he could not verify.
He also confirmed that cameras covered the landing, the main staircase, and parts of the upstairs corridor, though private bedrooms were not monitored.
The placement was intended to protect entrances and common areas, not to spy on guests.
I thought of the tiny red camera indicators I had passed thousands of times without noticing.
The devices might have seen Celeste lift the lamp base, but I would still have to live with the fact that no lens could undo the fall.
Owen offered to show me the damage once the officers cleared the landing.
I asked him not to.
The memory of wood striking the door was vivid enough without recreating it.
Instead, I went into the small conservatory overlooking the garden, where Mom once arranged white roses in blue ceramic bowls.
Noah followed me, carrying two mugs of tea.
"You don't have to pretend you're okay," he said.
I laughed once, miserably.
"Neither do you."
He admitted he had begun checking every door before entering a room.
He also said a locked bathroom at the hospital had triggered a sudden rush of panic he couldn't explain.
We spoke about getting counseling rather than behaving as though surviving danger meant we had no right to be shaken afterward.
Noah said he would go if I did.
I agreed.
That afternoon Detective Chen arrived to review the security information with Nate and Marcus.
She brought a digital evidence specialist and made clear which material they were legally obtaining, which they were preserving by consent, and which would require additional authorization.
Dad gave access to the household records he controlled, but he did not demand that investigators show him everything immediately.
In the living room, Chen asked about the staff who had keys and administrative access during the previous six months.
Marcus produced the visitor and maintenance schedules, noting that Celeste often rearranged appointments without consulting him.
One visit stood out.
A locksmith had been called to the upstairs guest-bedroom door two weeks earlier, supposedly to replace a faulty latch.
Noah stared at the date.
"That's when she started keeping that hallway closed."
The technician confirmed that a new lock could be operated from outside with a key while leaving the inside handle temporarily ineffective.
He did not claim the device had been installed for confinement, but the configuration explained why Noah could not leave.
We had another practical piece of the puzzle, and it frightened me more than any dramatic accusation.
Someone had prepared the room before the day of the assault.
Later Nate recovered an unaffected camera clip from the main stairwell.
It showed Celeste moving quickly toward the upper landing carrying the lamp base.
The clip stopped short of the door she struck, but it established what she held and where she went immediately before I ran.
Another camera recorded Dad rushing upward and catching me on the steps.
I watched the footage only once.
Seeing my body slide across marble while my father reached desperately for me made my stomach tighten.
It was proof of what happened, but proof had its own weight.
Chen asked whether I wished to stop viewing and let her describe the rest.
I said yes.
I had already given my statement; I did not need to punish myself by watching the fall repeatedly.
After the detective left, Dad sat beside me in the conservatory and admitted he had stopped reading several internal financial reports months earlier.
Calvin had handled them, and Celeste had reassured him that anything urgent would reach his desk.
"I thought delegating was a sign I trusted people," he said.
"I didn't notice that I was leaving you with people you couldn't trust."
I did not comfort him with an easy answer.
He needed to sit with that distinction.
Near sunset, Marcus called from the office downstairs.
Nate had located an intact access log showing a successful connection to the camera administration system during the eighteen-minute interruption.
The connection originated from a device issued through Vale Industrial Logistics, not a household computer.
The employee assigned to that device was Calvin Price.
Dad stood slowly, his expression unreadable.
May you like
The man who had supervised his accounts for fifteen years had somehow appeared in the record of the night before Celeste attacked us.
For the first time, my father began to grasp that his marriage and his business might have been compromised by the same hands.
