Chapter 6 - THE MAN WHO WATCHED THE HOUSE
Thomas Grady survived.
Barely.
His truck had been forced off a coastal road outside Camden, Maine.
Police initially assumed weather.
Then investigators found impact damage inconsistent with a single-vehicle accident.
Someone had struck him.
When he regained consciousness, he asked for one person.
Me.
Not Ethan.
Not Evelyn.
Claire Hart Whitmore.
I flew to Maine with Ortiz.
Thomas looked eighty despite being sixty-seven.
Bandages covered half his forehead.
One arm rested in a sling.
But his eyes were clear.
“You look like Daniel.”
That sentence almost broke me.
“You knew my father?”
“He saved my life.”
“How?”
Thomas smiled faintly.
“By being suspicious.”
He explained.
Richard Whitmore hired Thomas after several internal security breaches.
My father later discovered accounting irregularities.
Together, the three men created a secret evidence system.
Multiple cameras.
Independent power.
Analog backups.
Later digital mirrors.
“Where did the chandelier footage go?”
I asked.
Thomas looked at Ortiz.
Then me.
“Which footage?”
“The night Celeste pushed me.”
His expression changed.
“She finally did it.”
I stared.
“You expected her to?”
“No.”
“But Richard did.”
“What does that mean?”
Thomas struggled to sit higher.
“Richard knew Celeste’s temper.”
“That doesn’t mean he predicted a shove seventeen years later.”
“No.”
Thomas shook his head.
“He predicted someone would use her.”
I felt cold.
“Mercer.”
“Yes.”
“Did Celeste know about the camera?”
“Some.”
“How?”
“Graham found one of Richard’s old plans.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“Why didn’t he remove everything?”
“He couldn’t find the archive.”
My pulse quickened.
“What archive?”
Thomas looked toward the hospital door.
Ortiz closed it.
Then he whispered:
“The Whitmore Vault.”
I almost laughed.
It sounded theatrical.
Apparently Richard had been theatrical.
The vault was not a physical safe.
It was a distributed archive.
Copies of recordings stored in separate locations.
One inside the house.
One with Thomas.
One held through an attorney Richard trusted outside New York.
“Who?”
I asked.
Thomas shook his head.
“Dead.”
“Then where are the records?”
“Passed to his daughter.”
“Name?”
“Rebecca Sloan.”
Ortiz wrote it down.
Thomas continued.
“Graham knows the archive exists.”
“Does he know Rebecca?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What about Celeste?”
“No.”
“Then who removed the chandelier camera?”
Thomas looked at me.
“Probably someone protecting Graham.”
“Pierce?”
“Maybe.”
“Ethan?”
Thomas stared at me.
“No.”
“You sound certain.”
“I watched Ethan too.”
That hurt to hear.
“What did you see?”
“A spoiled young man.”
Thomas smiled faintly.
“Then a better one.”
I almost laughed.
“Did he know about the cameras?”
“Not from me.”
“He says he learned a year ago.”
“Then someone told him.”
“Who?”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“I don’t know.”
Ortiz stepped closer.
“Mr. Grady, where is your copy of the footage?”
Thomas opened his eyes.
“Gone.”
My stomach dropped.
“Who took it?”
“The person who ran me off the road.”
“Then we only have Rebecca Sloan.”
“Maybe.”
“What does that mean?”
Thomas looked at me.
“Daniel had his own copy.”
My father.
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
“He told me if anything happened to him, Claire would find it.”
I felt anger rise.
“I was sixteen.”
“He knew.”
“How was I supposed to find something he never told me existed?”
Thomas whispered:
“He left you the house.”
I frowned.
“What house?”
“The little house in Vermont.”
I stopped breathing.
My father owned a cabin near Stowe.
After his death, my mother sold it.
At least that was what she told me.
“Sold.”
Thomas shook his head.
“No.”
“Transferred.”
“To whom?”
“You.”
I stared at him.
I had inherited a house I never knew I owned.
And somewhere inside it, my father may have hidden the second copy of a recording archive powerful people had spent seventeen years trying to destroy.
Then Thomas said one last thing before exhaustion took over.
“Claire.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t look for the cameras.”
May you like
“Why?”
“Look for what they were watching.”
