Chapter 1 - The Camera Camille Never Found)
Grant's fingers tightened around Camille's wrist, not enough to hurt her, but enough to stop her from reaching Mia again.
"The camera?" he repeated.
Camille stared at Mia as though the child had just produced a weapon.
Mia's lips trembled. She looked smaller than nine in that moment, soaked in frosting and sitting beside shards of glass. Yet she forced herself to lift her chin.
"In my room."
Grant's gaze moved to the ceiling.
Camille recovered first.
"She's making things up. She's upset. You can see she's hysterical."
Anna stepped closer to Mia.
"No, sir."
Camille snapped toward her.
"I said shut up."
"No." Anna's voice shook, but she did not retreat. "Not this time."
Grant released Camille and moved to his daughter. He crouched, carefully lifted her away from the glass, and checked her bare arms for cuts.
"Mia, look at me."
She did.
"Are you hurt?"
She shook her head, then hesitated.
Grant saw the hesitation.
"Mia."
"My arm hurts."
Camille laughed once, sharp and disbelieving.
"Grant, she's been throwing herself around all afternoon. She's angry because I told her she couldn't invite half her class at the last minute."
Mia looked at her father.
"I didn't ask to invite anyone."
Grant's eyes shifted back to Camille.
Camille's face hardened.
"Mia lies when she's emotional. You know that."
Grant stood slowly, keeping one hand on Mia's shoulder.
"No," he said. "I don't know that."
That answer seemed to surprise everyone.
For months, Grant had treated every strange incident in the house as a misunderstanding. A broken music box. A missing necklace. A locked bedroom door. Mia refusing dinner. Mia crying before Grant's business trips. Camille always had an explanation. Mia had become withdrawn after Laura died. Mia resisted discipline. Mia hated the idea of a stepmother. Mia was testing boundaries.
Grant had wanted to believe the explanations because the alternative was unbearable.
Now there was frosting on his daughter's hair, Laura's shattered photograph on the floor, and terror in the eyes of the woman who had just been accused.
Grant picked Mia up.
"Show me the camera."
Camille stepped in front of the staircase.
"This is ridiculous."
"Move."
"Grant, think. She is nine years old. If you teach her she can secretly record adults whenever she doesn't like being corrected, what kind of person are you raising?"
Grant's jaw tightened.
"The kind who may have had a reason."
Camille's expression changed again.
Just a flicker.
But Grant saw it.
Anna saw it too.
Mia buried her face against her father's shoulder.
Grant walked past Camille.
Anna followed.
Behind them, Camille remained perfectly still for three seconds.
Then she reached for her phone.
Anna looked back and saw.
"Sir."
Grant turned.
Camille lowered the phone instantly.
"What?"
Anna pointed.
"She was calling someone."
Camille's mouth opened in outrage.
"I was calling the doctor. Your daughter is obviously unstable."
Grant descended one step.
"Give me your phone."
Camille stared at him.
"You can't be serious."
"Give it to me."
"This is my private property."
"My daughter is covered in cake because someone put her on the floor. A photograph of my dead wife is shattered next to her. A witness says you're lying. My child says there's a camera. If you make one more move before I understand what happened here, Camille, you will regret it."
Camille's face went still.
Then, very carefully, she placed the phone on the entry table.
Grant continued upstairs.
Mia's bedroom was at the end of a long corridor painted in warm cream. When Laura had been alive, the room had been bright and cluttered, full of books, stuffed animals, and drawings taped crookedly to the walls. After Camille moved in, the room became almost unnaturally neat.
Grant had once praised her for helping Mia "adjust."
Now he noticed something he had somehow never allowed himself to notice.
The framed family photos were gone.
All of them.
"Mia?"
She pointed to a shelf above her desk.
A tiny black camera sat hidden inside the hollow eye of a stuffed owl.
Grant stopped breathing for a moment.
"Where did you get that?"
"Anna."
Anna looked down.
Grant turned.
"You put a camera in my daughter's room?"
"Yes, sir."
"Why?"
"Because she begged me."
Mia clutched his jacket.
"She didn't want to."
Anna's eyes filled with tears.
"At first I told her no. I thought it would make things worse. But then..." She looked at Mia's arm. "Then I saw the bruises."
Grant slowly lowered his daughter onto the bed.
"What bruises?"
Mia pulled her sleeve up.
On the inside of her upper arm were faint yellow marks beneath a newer purple one.
Grant's face emptied.
Camille appeared in the doorway.
"She bruises easily."
Grant looked at her.
No anger now.
That was worse.
Only a silence so absolute that Camille took one involuntary step back.
Grant reached for the camera.
Camille suddenly moved.
"Don't."
Everyone froze.
Camille realized what she had done.
Grant held the camera in his hand.
"Why not?"
"Because recording someone without consent is illegal."
Grant looked down at the device.
"That's what you're worried about?"
"I am worried about this family being destroyed by a frightened child's fantasies."
Mia made a small sound.
Grant looked at her.
Then he connected the camera to the tablet on her desk.
The screen opened to a folder.
There were twenty-three video files.
Each file was labeled with a date.
Grant recognized some immediately.
Dates of his trips.
Chicago.
Seattle.
Boston.
Two days in Houston.
A board retreat in Napa.
Every single recording had been made while he was away.
The newest file was from that afternoon.
Grant's hand hovered over it.
Camille stepped into the room.
"Grant."
He pressed play.
The video began with Mia sitting on the edge of her bed, wearing the pink dress.
Camille's voice came from the hallway.
"Where is it?"
Mia looked toward the door.
"Where is what?"
"The photograph."
Then Camille entered the frame.
But she was not alone.
A man followed her into Mia's bedroom.
Grant paused the video.
His eyes narrowed.
He knew that man.
May you like
At least, he thought he did.
"Why is my lawyer in Mia's room?"
