Chapter 7 - What Celeste Recorded
Police arrived within twenty minutes.
Renata demanded an attorney and refused to answer questions. She was taken from the mansion in a dark coat, her silk robe hidden beneath it, while photographers gathered beyond the gates.
Grant carried Lily to her bedroom.
The child refused to release him.
Emma followed and closed the curtains.
A doctor examined the burned patch in Lily’s hair and the red marks on her shoulder. The injury was painful but superficial. The doctor recommended immediate trauma care and asked to speak privately with Grant.
Emma waited outside the room.
She expected to be questioned.
She expected Grant to blame her for failing to protect Lily sooner.
Instead, he emerged with his face gray and exhausted.
“Why didn’t she tell me?” he asked.
Emma chose her words carefully.
“She tried.”
Grant looked at her.
“She never spoke.”
“Speaking is not the only way a child tells you she is afraid.”
He lowered his gaze.
Emma softened her voice.
“Renata controlled your calls. She entered Lily’s room without knocking. She punished her for writing and drawing. Every time Lily looked at you, Renata was watching her.”
Grant sat on the hallway bench.
“I brought that woman into my daughter’s home.”
“You believed someone you trusted.”
“I believed what was convenient.”
Emma did not deny it.
After a moment, Grant asked, “Why did Lily trust you?”
“I did not ask her to speak before she was ready.”
Grant looked toward the bedroom door.
“Will she speak again?”
“I don’t know.”
Inside, Lily began humming the music box lullaby.
Grant’s eyes filled.
“She hasn’t hummed that since Celeste died.”
Emma sat beside him.
“Celeste left clues for her.”
She told him about the notebook, the music box, Elias, and the greenhouse room.
Grant listened without interrupting.
When she finished, he removed the memory card from his pocket.
“Mason believes we should view this with the police.”
“He’s right.”
“But Renata said someone else was controlling the house.”
“She may have been trying to frighten us.”
“Was she?”
Emma looked toward a small decorative clock on the hallway table.
A tiny dark circle sat beneath the number six.
A camera lens.
“No,” she said. “I don’t think she was.”
They moved to Grant’s private study after Lily fell asleep with a police officer stationed outside her door.
Mason, Elias, and Detective Lena Ortiz joined them.
The detective was direct and skeptical.
“You removed evidence from a fire scene,” she told Emma.
“I was trying to stop it from being destroyed.”
“You entered a hidden room without a warrant.”
“It was inside the home where I work.”
Ortiz stared at her.
“You are either extremely brave or extremely reckless.”
“Probably both.”
Elias almost smiled.
Mason inserted Celeste’s memory card into an offline laptop.
A password request appeared.
Grant tried Celeste’s birthday.
Rejected.
Lily’s birthday.
Rejected.
Their wedding anniversary.
Rejected.
Emma remembered the numbers in the music box.
“Try 041709261103.”
Mason entered it.
The archive opened.
Dozens of video files appeared.
Each was labeled with a room name and date.
The oldest recording was from nearly two years earlier.
Grant selected it.
Celeste appeared on-screen inside the marble bathroom.
She was beautiful, with the same pale blonde hair as Lily. She stood before the mirror holding a piece of paper.
“If Grant is watching this,” she said, “then I failed to tell him in person.”
Grant gripped the edge of the desk.
Celeste continued.
“Someone is using Callahan security technology to monitor private homes, government offices, and corporate rivals. The orders appear to come from Grant’s executive account, but I believe his credentials were copied.”
Grant looked at Mason.
“That’s impossible.”
Celeste spoke from the recording.
“I confronted Renata tonight. She admitted she helped access the servers, but she claims she is not in charge. She gave me one name.”
The video distorted.
Static covered the screen.
Then Celeste looked directly into the hidden camera.
“Orpheus.”
The recording ended.
Detective Ortiz leaned closer.
“Who is Orpheus?”
Grant’s face had gone pale.
“It isn’t a person.”
“What is it?”
“A discontinued internal system my company built seven years ago.”
“What did it do?”
May you like
Grant stared at the blank screen.
“It predicted human behavior.”
