Chapter 3 - THE MAN WHO CONTROLLED THE CAMERAS
The mansion switched to emergency power eleven seconds later.
Only half the lights returned.
Grace pulled the girls together.
I opened the door.
Two security men were moving toward the staircase.
I recognized both.
Marco Bell and Ethan Walsh.
Men I had hired personally.
“What happened?”
Marco answered.
“Main system reset.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know.”
“Where’s Carlo?”
“Security room.”
I looked at Grace.
“Stay with them.”
“No.”
The answer surprised me.
She stepped closer.
“If someone is looking for whatever Isabelle left behind, separating the girls from you is exactly what they would want.”
She was right again.
I hated that she was right.
“Then everyone comes with me.”
We moved downstairs.
The security room was behind the kitchen wing.
Carlo stood in front of six blank monitors.
He turned when I entered.
“Dominic.”
“What happened?”
“Someone triggered a system reset remotely.”
“Who has remote access?”
“Me.”
“Anyone else?”
His expression tightened.
“You.”
“No one else?”
“Not officially.”
My mother entered behind us.
Carlo saw her.
Something passed between them.
Recognition.
Fear.
Perhaps guilt.
“You searched Isabelle’s bedroom three days after her funeral,” I said.
Carlo went completely still.
Marco and Ethan looked at each other.
Carlo slowly faced my mother.
“You told him.”
“She deserved better than silence.”
Carlo exhaled.
“I was looking for something.”
“The blue book?”
His expression changed.
That was enough.
“You knew about it.”
“I knew something existed.”
“How?”
“Isabelle called me.”
I moved closer.
“When?”
“The night before she died.”
“What did she say?”
“She told me if anything happened to her, there was information hidden somewhere in the house.”
My hands clenched.
“You never told me?”
“She told me not to.”
Everyone seemed to use the same excuse.
I was beginning to understand how completely Isabelle had isolated me from the truth.
Not because she didn’t trust me.
Because she knew exactly how I reacted to threats.
“What was in the book?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who else knew about it?”
“I don’t know.”
My mother spoke.
“That is not true.”
Carlo looked at her.
“You were with Cecilia the week before Isabelle died.”
His jaw tightened.
Dominic Romano had spent his adult life reading men who lied for survival.
Carlo’s face told me he was hiding something.
“Everybody out except Carlo.”
Grace looked at me.
I shook my head.
“Take the girls into the breakfast room with my mother.”
Olivia grabbed my sleeve.
“No.”
I looked down.
Her face had changed.
“Sweetheart?”
“Carlo stays.”
I stared at her.
She pointed toward him.
“He helped Mommy.”
Carlo closed his eyes.
A long breath left him.
When he opened them again, the man standing in front of me looked twenty years older.
“I should have told you.”
“Yes.”
“But Isabelle made me promise.”
“Tell me now.”
He walked to a locked drawer.
He removed a flash drive.
“I made this fourteen months ago.”
He inserted it into an isolated laptop.
A security video appeared.
Garden City.
The preschool parking lot.
Timestamped 8:12 a.m.
The morning Isabelle died.
My stomach tightened.
“I thought all the footage from that area was lost.”
“That was the public story.”
I looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because someone accessed our systems within an hour of what happened.”
“And you kept a copy?”
“Yes.”
The video showed Isabelle arriving.
Olivia and Sophie climbed out of the car.
Nora was not there.
She had been sick that morning.
Then another vehicle entered.
A silver Mercedes.
Cecilia stepped out.
She walked toward Isabelle.
Even without audio, the argument was obvious.
Cecilia pointed at her.
Isabelle shook her head.
Then Cecilia grabbed her arm.
Olivia gasped behind us.
I had not realized she had followed Grace back into the room.
“No.”
Grace tried to guide her away.
Olivia resisted.
“I saw this.”
I let the video continue.
Cecilia stepped backward.
A man appeared at the far end of the parking lot.
His face was hidden by the angle.
He wore a charcoal coat.
Isabelle saw him.
Her entire posture changed.
Fear.
She grabbed her daughters and moved toward the school entrance.
The man turned toward the camera.
For one second, his face became visible.
Anthony.
My brother.
The air left my lungs.
Anthony looked directly toward Isabelle.
Then the video jumped.
Thirty-seven seconds were missing.
When it resumed, the parking lot was chaos.
Parents were running.
Teachers were rushing outside.
Carlo stopped the video.
I stared at him.
“Where are the thirty-seven seconds?”
“Deleted before I copied it.”
“By whom?”
“We traced the access.”
“To whom?”
Carlo looked toward the girls.
Then back at me.
“To a computer inside this mansion.”
My heart pounded.
“Which computer?”
He hesitated.
“The one in your office.”
Silence.
Someone had used my computer.
My credentials.
My house.
My name.
I turned toward the door.
Anthony was standing there.
Nobody had heard him enter.
He looked at the frozen image on the laptop.
Then at me.
“Dominic.”
I said nothing.
He slowly raised both hands.
“You need to listen to me before you decide what you think you know.”
Olivia moved behind Grace.
Anthony noticed.
His face changed.
“She’s talking.”
Then he whispered something I did not expect.
“Thank God.”
I stepped toward him.
“You have thirty seconds.”
Anthony looked at Carlo.
Then at my mother.
Finally, he looked at me.
“Cecilia was there that morning.”
“I know.”
“So was I.”
“I know.”
“But neither of us caused what happened to Isabelle.”
“Then who did?”
Anthony’s eyes moved toward the hallway.
He lowered his voice.
“The person who ordered me to follow your wife.”
I felt the room close around me.
“Who?”
Anthony looked at our mother.
May you like
Then he said a name that made no sense.
“Dad.”
