Chapter 4 - The Camera Behind the Clock
The unknown number sent no second message.
I called it once.
Disconnected.
I enlarged the photograph. It had been taken from across the street, probably inside a parked vehicle. The angle showed the Silver Pines entrance, the sidewalk, and half of the gray sedan.
Someone had been watching Jenna’s visit.
Someone had watched me leave.
I forwarded the photograph to Rachel.
Her response came immediately.
Take Mia and get to a public place. Now.
Before I could move, Travis came downstairs.
“Who keeps texting you?”
I locked the screen.
“No one.”
His eyes dropped to the phone.
Then he smiled.
“Give it to me.”
I took one step backward.
He noticed.
The smile faded.
“I said give me the phone.”
Mia was in the living room arranging wooden blocks. I could see the top of her head beyond the kitchen doorway.
“Why?”
Travis stepped closer.
“Because I pay for it.”
“No. Jenna pays for it.”
The words escaped before I could stop them.
His expression changed.
“What did you say?”
I corrected myself quickly.
“I pay for it with the grocery allowance.”
He studied me.
The front doorbell rang.
Neither of us moved.
It rang again.
Travis looked through the window. A woman in a navy suit stood on the porch holding a clipboard.
He opened the door only halfway.
“Mr. King?”
“I’m busy.”
“My name is Melissa Grant. I’m with Fairmont Child and Family Services. We received a report concerning your daughter.”
His face lost color.
Behind him, I kept my expression blank.
Rachel had moved faster than I expected.
Travis glanced at me.
“Who called you?”
“I can’t disclose that.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my daughter.”
“Then a brief welfare check should resolve the matter.”
He stepped onto the porch and lowered his voice, but the windows were open.
“My family has donated to your department for fifteen years.”
“I’m aware.”
“My father knows your director.”
“I’m aware of that too.”
There was steel beneath Melissa Grant’s politeness.
Travis let her inside.
She asked to speak to Mia privately. He objected. She explained that refusal would be documented and might lead to a court order.
For the first time, I saw him forced to obey a woman he could not punish.
While Melissa sat with Mia in the dining room, Travis pulled me into the pantry.
“You did this.”
“No.”
His hand closed around my throat.
Not enough to cut off my breathing.
Enough to remind me that he could.
“If they take her, I’ll bury you.”
I stared into his eyes.
“You’re being watched.”
His fingers tightened.
“And you’re still mine.”
I could have ended it there.
One upward strike. One turn of the wrist. One collapsed throat.
Instead, I whispered, “There’s a camera behind you.”
He released me and spun around.
There was no camera.
But the sudden fear on his face told me something important.
He already knew there were cameras in the house.
Hidden ones.
He left the pantry and returned to Melissa with a smile. I stayed behind, pretending to arrange canned goods while searching the shelves.
Nothing.
Later, after Melissa left, Travis announced that she had found no reason to remove Mia immediately. But she had requested a pediatric examination the next morning.
“You’ll take her,” he told me. “And you’ll tell the doctor she bruises easily.”
“I’ll tell the truth.”
His eyes went cold.
He looked toward Mia.
Then back at me.
“You’ll tell the doctor she bruises easily.”
That evening, Travis went to his father’s house for an emergency family meeting. Gloria arrived minutes after he left and took Mia for what she called a grandmother’s sleepover.
I objected.
Gloria produced a handwritten note from Travis authorizing it.
She crouched in front of Mia.
“Wouldn’t you rather sleep at Grandma’s house?”
Mia looked at me.
“No.”
Gloria’s smile tightened.
“You can have chocolate pancakes.”
“No.”
I moved between them.
“She stays here.”
Gloria straightened.
“My son said otherwise.”
“I am her mother.”
The lie tasted strange.
For the first time, it was not disguise.
It was instinct.
Gloria reached for Mia’s arm.
I caught her wrist.
“Do not touch her.”
She gasped.
“You’re hurting me.”
“Then stop pulling.”
Something flickered in her eyes.
Recognition.
Not certainty, but suspicion.
She leaned closer.
“Jenna has never looked at me like that.”
I released her.
“Maybe you never gave her a reason to.”
Gloria left without Mia.
Five minutes later, the unknown number texted again.
You should have let the child go.
The message confirmed that someone was watching the house in real time.
I closed every curtain and began searching.
The first camera was inside a smoke detector above the kitchen.
The second was hidden in a USB charger near the couch.
The third sat behind the glass of a digital clock in the bedroom.
I removed the clock and opened the back panel.
A memory card rested inside.
I inserted it into Travis’s laptop.
There were hundreds of video files.
The bedroom.
The kitchen.
The living room.
The hallway outside the bathroom.
Some recordings showed Jenna cooking, cleaning, and caring for Mia.
Others showed Travis yelling at her.
Striking her.
Dragging her out of camera range.
Gloria was visible in several clips. Paige appeared in others, laughing while Jenna scrubbed the floor after Travis deliberately overturned a pot of soup.
Then I found a folder labeled Insurance.
Inside was footage from three months earlier.
Travis sat in his office with his father, Warren King.
Warren was sixty-three, heavyset, and known throughout Fairmont as a respected developer and philanthropist.
On the video, he poured bourbon while Travis paced.
“You’re becoming careless,” Warren said.
“She won’t leave.”
“That isn’t the issue. People notice bruises.”
“She covers them.”
“And the child?”
Travis shrugged.
“She’s three.”
“Three-year-olds talk.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Warren glanced toward the camera without appearing to see it.
“The lake house is empty in winter.”
Travis stopped pacing.
“You’re serious?”
“I’m saying accidents happen. A loose railing. A fall into cold water. A wife with a documented connection to mental illness.”
My blood turned to ice.
Travis smiled.
“And the insurance?”
“Already updated.”
The video ended.
For several seconds, I could not move.
This was not only abuse.
It was planning.
A family plan to kill Jenna, frame her mental health history, collect insurance money, and possibly take Mia.
I copied the files onto two flash drives and uploaded them to Rachel’s secure account.
Then another video caught my attention.
It was dated ten years earlier.
The image was grainy and came from a different building. A hospital office.
Warren King sat across from my father.
My father looked older than I remembered. Tired. Nervous.
Between them was a contract.
Warren slid a check across the desk.
“Silver Pines is expensive,” he said.
My father looked at the amount.
“What do you want?”
“Your daughter Avery remains under private care.”
“She may be released next year.”
“Then request continued guardianship.”
“Why do you care?”
Warren leaned back.
“Because my son is interested in Jenna. Avery has always interfered.”
My father’s face tightened.
“She’s sick.”
“Then keeping her institutionalized is merciful.”
“And if Jenna marries Travis?”
“Your debts disappear.”
My knees nearly gave out.
My father had sold ten years of my life.
Not because I was too dangerous to return home.
Because Warren King wanted Jenna isolated.
The King family had not accidentally found a vulnerable woman.
They had manufactured one.
I copied the video.
A floorboard creaked behind me.
I turned.
Paige King stood in the bedroom doorway holding a small pistol.
She was twenty-nine, thin, blond, and dressed in a red workout set. Her hand shook, but the gun did not.
“I knew it,” she said.
I slowly removed my hands from the laptop.
“Knew what?”
“You’re not Jenna.”
I said nothing.
Paige smiled.
“Jenna cries when someone raises their voice. You stare like you’re calculating how many bones they have.”
She stepped into the room.
“You’re Avery.”
“How long have you known?”
“Since yesterday.”
“Did you send the photograph?”
“No. Dad did.”
Warren.
He had watched Silver Pines because he feared exactly this.
Paige motioned toward the laptop.
“Move away.”
I obeyed.
“What happens now?”
“You’re going back to the hospital.”
“And Jenna?”
“She’ll come home.”
“So Travis can kill her at the lake house?”
Paige’s face changed.
Only slightly.
“You saw that?”
“I saw everything.”
Her hand tightened around the pistol.
“My father says people like you destroy families.”
“Your family destroys people.”
“You broke a boy’s arm.”
“He was attacking Jenna.”
“That’s not what the report said.”
“The report your father paid for?”
She hesitated.
I took one slow step closer.
“Your father kept me locked away for ten years so Travis could control my sister.”
“Stop.”
“He recorded all of you. Why?”
“To protect us.”
“No. To own you.”
“Stop talking.”
“He has footage of you helping Travis hurt Jenna. If the police find it, you go down with them.”
Her eyes flickered toward the laptop.
Fear.
Guilt.
Opportunity.
“You have a choice,” I said. “Help me save Mia, or keep protecting men who will sacrifice you the moment it benefits them.”
Paige’s breathing became uneven.
“Dad would never do that.”
“Then why did he send you here alone?”
The pistol lowered an inch.
A car door slammed outside.
Paige looked toward the window.
Warren’s black SUV was in the driveway.
Her face drained of color.
“He said he was staying home.”
I moved closer.
“He sent you to destroy evidence. Then he came to make sure you couldn’t talk.”
“That’s not true.”
The front door opened.
Warren called from downstairs.
“Paige?”
She stared at me.
I held out my hand.
“Choose.”
Footsteps approached the stairs.
Paige looked at the gun.
Then at me.
Finally, she placed it in my hand.
“What do we do?”
I removed the magazine and cleared the chamber.
“We make sure your father believes you’re still loyal.”
Warren reached the hallway.
Paige stepped into the doorway.
“She’s here,” she called.
I hid behind the wall.
Warren entered the bedroom carrying a black duffel bag.
He looked at the open laptop.
Then at his daughter.
“Did you delete everything?”
Paige swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Where’s Avery?”
“Bathroom.”
Warren opened the duffel bag.
Inside were syringes, duct tape, and a folded plastic sheet.
Paige stared at them.
“What is that?”
“Insurance.”
“For who?”
Warren looked at his daughter with mild disappointment.
“For this family.”
That was when I stepped behind him.
May you like
“Your family is finished.”
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