Chapter 4 - The House With Two Sets of Cameras
By the next morning, Mark Collins had given three different explanations for his injuries.
According to the emergency physician's initial notes, he had fallen down a staircase.
According to Linda, he had lost his balance during an argument.
According to the statement he gave police after receiving treatment, I had struck him with a metal flashlight before fleeing the house.
There was one problem.
I hadn't been there.
At the time Mark claimed I attacked him, I was sitting inside an ambulance beside my daughter.
The ambulance had GPS records.
The paramedics had treatment notes.
And the hospital had arrival timestamps.
Those facts didn't automatically solve anything.
But they gave investigators a starting point that was stronger than Mark's memory.
Rebecca reminded me not to interfere with the investigation.
I agreed.
Then I made a call to someone who knew how much I disliked waiting.
His name was Frank Delgado.
Sixty-two.
Former detective.
Retired two years before me.
Still had the same gravelly voice that once made suspects confess things they hadn't been asked about.
“Bennett,” he answered.
“Frank.”
“You sound terrible.”
“Good morning to you, too.”
“What's wrong?”
I told him.
Not everything.
Just enough.
When I finished, he was quiet.
Then he said, “I'm coming over.”
“I'm at the hospital.”
“Then that's where I'm coming.”
“Frank—”
“Robert, I know that voice.”
“What voice?”
“The one you use when you're trying not to do something stupid.”
I almost laughed.
“I'm not doing anything stupid.”
“Excellent. Then you won't mind having a witness.”
He hung up.
Frank arrived carrying two coffees and a bag of breakfast sandwiches.
He put them on the table in the family waiting room.
“Eat.”
“I can't.”
“Then hold it until you remember how.”
He sat across from me.
I had known him for almost thirty years.
He was the closest thing I had to a brother.
He had been there after my wife, Sarah, died of ovarian cancer six years earlier.
He had helped me pack away her clothes.
He had driven Emily to her wedding when I was struggling to keep my emotions under control.
And now he was sitting in front of me, watching me come apart.
“Tell me the part you left out over the phone,” he said.
I showed him the photograph.
Then the legal documents.
Then the message from the unknown number.
He studied everything.
When he finished, he rubbed his jaw.
“This is organized.”
“That's what scares me.”
“Who knows about the photograph?”
“Rebecca. Emily. You.”
“Police?”
“Not yet.”
Frank raised an eyebrow.
“I know.”
“Robert.”
“I needed to understand it first.”
“You spent thirty-one years telling witnesses not to hide evidence because they thought they knew better than the investigators.”
I looked down.
He was right.
Again.
Everybody seemed determined to be right that morning.
“I'll turn it over,” I said.
“Good.”
He picked up the photograph again.
“Something's bothering me.”
“What?”
“The angle.”
I leaned forward.
“What about it?”
“This wasn't taken by someone standing beside the bed.”
He enlarged the picture.
“Look at the upper corner.”
I saw part of a smoke detector.
A tiny dark circle beneath it.
Frank tapped the screen.
“Camera.”
I frowned.
“Security camera?”
“Looks like it.”
“Inside a bedroom?”
“Possibly. Or some kind of examination room.”
I looked more closely.
The photograph wasn't centered on Emily.
It showed nearly the entire bed.
The doorway.
Part of a cabinet.
Someone had captured it from a fixed angle.
“This is a still from a video,” I said.
Frank nodded.
“That's my guess.”
A longer recording might show what happened.
How Emily got there.
Who was present.
Whether she was conscious.
And why Daniel Price was standing beside her.
But we didn't know where the camera was located.
Or who controlled it.
Frank finished his coffee.
“Question is, who sent it?”
“Someone who wants me to know.”
“Or someone who wants you to react.”
I looked at him.
He shrugged.
“Both can be true.”
At ten thirty, Officer Ruiz called.
He asked whether I could come to the hospital's administrative office.
When I arrived, Rebecca was already there.
So was a woman in her fifties wearing a navy blazer.
She introduced herself as hospital security director Angela Foster.
Ruiz had a folder open.
“Mr. Bennett, we have an update.”
I sat.
Angela placed a printed image on the table.
It showed Mark standing at the top of his basement stairs.
The picture was grainy.
But unmistakable.
A timestamp glowed in the corner.
3:47 p.m.
I leaned forward.
Angela continued.
“Mr. Collins's residence has two camera systems.”
I glanced at Frank, who had accompanied me.
He didn't react.
“One is a consumer security system connected to the family's internet,” Angela said.
“The other is a professionally installed local recording system.”
Ruiz nodded.
“The local system records to a storage device in a locked utility room.”
I remembered Linda's face when I mentioned the cameras.
“Who installed it?”
“According to preliminary information, the previous owner,” Ruiz said.
“Mark and Linda told officers the only cameras were the ones connected to the internet. The local system wasn't mentioned.”
Angela slid another image toward me.
This one showed Mark halfway down the basement stairs.
His body twisted.
One hand gripping the railing.
The other raised.
A moment later, in the next frame, he was on the floor.
I stared.
There was no one beside him.
No old man with a flashlight.
No attacker.
He had fallen.
“Was he carrying anything?” I asked.
Ruiz glanced at the photograph.
“Possibly.”
Angela enlarged the image.
A dark object was visible in Mark's hand.
Long.
Rectangular.
He appeared to be holding it close to his chest as he moved toward the stairs.
“Could be a storage drive,” Frank murmured.
Ruiz looked up.
“That's one possibility.”
I kept staring.
Mark had been running downstairs with something in his hand.
Then he'd fallen.
“Why was he going downstairs?”
“We're still investigating.”
I looked at the officers.
“Did you recover the object?”
Ruiz's expression became guarded.
“The scene is being processed.”
I understood the answer.
He wasn't going to tell me.
And he shouldn't.
But Frank noticed something I missed.
“Can you enlarge the top right corner?”
Angela did.
At the edge of the image was a woman's hand.
Pale.
A gold bracelet.
Linda.
She was standing just outside the camera's view.
The image showed Mark turning toward her immediately before he lost his footing.
I felt something cold settle in my stomach.
“Was she behind him?”
Ruiz didn't answer.
He closed the folder.
“Mr. Bennett, we have enough to know that your son-in-law's accusation requires further investigation.”
“Is he being charged?”
“Not at this time.”
I nodded.
I knew how these things worked.
A false accusation wasn't automatically a criminal charge.
Investigators needed evidence of intent.
And Mark's fall, however suspicious, wasn't proof of a larger crime.
Ruiz leaned forward.
“There's something else I need to ask you.”
“Yes?”
“Have you received any unusual communications since yesterday?”
I took out my phone.
“Yes.”
I showed him the messages.
The photograph.
Everything.
His expression changed when he saw Daniel Price.
“Where did you get this?”
“Unknown number.”
“Have you replied?”
“No.”
He studied the picture.
Then he looked at Angela.
“Can you identify that room?”
She leaned closer.
Her face went pale.
“Maybe.”
I frowned.
“Maybe?”
She enlarged the background.
Looked at the cabinet.
The door handle.
The wall trim.
Then she stood.
“I need to check something.”
Ruiz followed her toward the door.
Before he left, I heard him ask quietly, “What is it?”
Angela answered in a voice I almost couldn't hear.
“That room was closed eleven years ago.”
We waited for forty minutes.
Frank sat beside me.
Rebecca reviewed documents.
I stared at the floor.
Finally, Angela returned with a maintenance supervisor.
The supervisor carried an old building blueprint.
He spread it across the table.
“St. Catherine's used to have a small outpatient behavioral health unit in the east annex,” he explained.
“Closed in 2015.”
Angela pointed to a room.
“Examination Room E-14.”
I looked at the photograph.
Same cabinet.
Same door.
Same wall fixture.
My stomach dropped.
“So the photograph was taken here?”
“That's our working theory.”
Rebecca leaned forward.
“But the room was closed?”
“Yes.”
“Then how did someone get my client's daughter inside?”
The supervisor hesitated.
“There are service entrances.”
“Are they secured?”
“Yes.”
“Who has access?”
“Maintenance. Security. Certain administrators.”
Angela looked at him sharply.
“And former employees?”
“No.”
The room went silent.
Then Ruiz asked, “Can the annex be searched?”
Angela nodded.
“With proper coordination, yes.”
I could barely breathe.
My daughter had been brought to a closed hospital ward.
Someone had put a bracelet on her wrist.
Someone had photographed her unconscious.
And a former nurse had apparently been present.
For what purpose?
I didn't know.
Not yet.
But the truth was getting closer.
Then Angela's radio crackled.
A guard's voice came through.
“Director Foster, we have a situation at the east annex.”
She picked it up.
“Go ahead.”
“We found the door to E-14 open.”
Angela stiffened.
“Is anyone inside?”
A pause.
Then the guard answered.
“No, ma'am.”
Relief washed through me.
Until he continued.
“But there's a hospital bed in the room.”
I stared at the photograph on my phone.
“And?”
May you like
The guard's voice trembled.
“Someone left a pink sweater folded on the pillow.”
Related Stories
