Chapter 4 - ACCIDENTS WITH A PATTERN
The police did not arrest anyone that afternoon.
They called the situation inconclusive and forwarded the evidence to a detective who specialized in child-endangerment cases.
Celeste left the mansion with Richard.
Before she stepped into his car, she turned and looked at the ceiling camera above the front door.
It was the same look she had given the staircase camera.
Not fear of being watched.
Anger at having failed to control what was watching her.
I changed every lock before sunset.
I also changed every password I could remember.
Then Mara Chen called.
"We have a bigger problem than one deleted video."
She asked me to bring Hannah and Oliver to a secure apartment she used for sensitive cases.
I refused to move Oliver until she explained.
"Grant, somebody accessed your security administrator account eleven times in the last six months."
"Eleven?"
"Four of those sessions correspond to camera outages."
My stomach tightened.
"Which cameras?"
"Nursery, pool terrace, garage, and staircase."
I remembered the pool immediately.
Three months earlier, Oliver had wandered through an unlocked French door and reached the stone terrace before Hannah caught him.
Celeste had blamed a housekeeper for leaving the door open.
The housekeeper had been fired.
The nursery outage happened the night Oliver developed a fever after someone doubled his cold medication.
Celeste had blamed a pharmacy labeling error.
The garage outage occurred the morning Hannah found Oliver sitting alone in the back seat of Celeste's car with the doors locked.
Celeste had blamed the automatic child lock.
At the time, each event had seemed separate.
Now they formed a line.
Mara sent me the outage timestamps.
I printed them and placed them on my desk.
Hannah stood beside me.
Her face grew paler with each date.
"I remember every one."
"So do I."
"You believed her every time."
The accusation hurt because it was true.
"I believed the explanation."
"That is the same thing."
I did not argue.
Grief had made me hungry for normalcy.
Celeste had offered normalcy in beautiful clothes and a calm voice.
Whenever something frightening happened, she had arrived with a reason that allowed me to stop asking questions.
I had thanked her for the lie because the lie let me sleep.
Hannah sat down.
"There was another one."
"What?"
"Before the pool."
She looked toward the hallway to make sure Oliver was with my mother on a video call.
"The night the nursery window opened."
I remembered the winter storm.
A sensor had alerted us at 2:13 a.m.
We found the window unlatched and cold air pouring over Oliver's crib.
Celeste claimed the old latch had failed.
I had replaced every window the next week.
"The camera was working that night."
"No."
Hannah pulled out her phone.
"You were traveling."
She opened an old text thread.
At 2:16 a.m., she had messaged me that the camera feed would not load.
I had replied from Chicago that the storm had probably interrupted the network.
My throat went dry.
That made five outages.
Mara searched equipment logs and found one more.
The sixth outage occurred fourteen months earlier.
The night Laura died.
I stared at the timestamp.
9:42 p.m. to 11:06 p.m.
Laura's accident had been reported at 10:17.
"Why would our home cameras matter if Laura died on the highway?"
Mara's answer came slowly.
"Because somebody used your home network during that outage to access Laura's vehicle account."
Modern cars stored far more information than most owners realized.
Location.
Speed.
Service history.
Remote start commands.
Maintenance diagnostics.
According to Mara, a login from my house had opened Laura's vehicle dashboard eighteen minutes before the crash.
"Can you tell who?"
"Not yet."
"Was Celeste in my house then?"
Hannah made a sound behind me.
I turned.
She was staring at the floor.
"Hannah?"
"She was."
"How do you know?"
"Because I saw her."
I felt the room tilt.
"You knew Celeste before Laura died?"
Hannah closed her eyes.
"Yes."
I stepped away from her.
Every instinct in me changed direction at once.
"Start talking."
"I can't explain it in one sentence."
"Try."
She looked at me with the same terrified honesty she had shown at the staircase.
"Laura hired me before she died."
"You told me you answered an agency posting."
"That was the cover story."
"Cover for what?"
"For watching Celeste."
I stared at her.
Hannah continued before I could interrupt.
"Laura thought someone was entering the house when you traveled."
"Why would she think it was Celeste?"
"Because Celeste was not your girlfriend then."
"I know that."
"No, Grant."
Hannah's voice dropped.
"I mean Laura knew her."
The room went silent.
I could hear Oliver laughing faintly through the video call in the next room.
"From where?"
Hannah reached into her bag and removed an old photograph.
Laura stood in the center, younger by maybe six years, holding a champagne glass at a charity gala.
Beside her was Richard Sloane.
And beside Richard stood Celeste.
Her hair was longer.
Her name badge was visible.
CAROLINE VALE.
I looked at Hannah.
"Who is Caroline Vale?"
"Celeste's real name."
I turned the photograph over.
Laura had written one sentence on the back.
May you like
If Caroline comes near Oliver, call Mara before you call Grant.
The note was dated three weeks before Laura died.
