PART 4 — THE CAMERA WASN’T WATCHING THE BABY
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Emma kept staring at Caleb’s message.
I read it again.
“Before you blame Mom for what they found, you need to ask Emma why she already knew there was a second camera.”
I looked at her.
“Emma.”
She closed her eyes.
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Her face tightened.
“I know.”
I lowered my voice because the last thing I wanted was to become another person cornering her.
“Did you know there was another camera in our house?”
“Yes.”
The word came out barely above a whisper.
I felt something inside me drop.
“How long?”
“About three weeks.”
I stepped back.
Three weeks.
Three weeks of sleeping in that house.
Three weeks of walking through that hallway.
Three weeks of believing the only person watching our family was the baby monitor we had installed ourselves.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Emma looked toward the hospital room.
“Because I didn’t know who put it there.”
“That is exactly why you should have told me.”
“I know.”
“Did you touch it?”
“No.”
“Did you take a picture?”
“Yes.”
“Show me.”
Her hands trembled as she unlocked her phone.
She searched through a hidden photo folder.
Then she handed it to me.
There it was.
A small black device partly concealed behind a decorative wooden elephant on the nursery bookshelf.
The date stamp was twenty-two days earlier.
“You found this and left it there?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to know who was using it.”
I stared at her.
“You thought someone was spying on us and decided to investigate alone?”
“I didn’t know if I was imagining things.”
“Emma.”
“I’m serious.”
She swallowed.
“By then your mother had already spent weeks telling people I was unstable. She had already shoved me and denied it. She had already been coming into the house when you weren’t home.”
Her eyes filled.
“If I ripped a camera off the wall and accused her and it turned out to be something you installed or something that came with the baby system, what do you think she would have said?”
I had no answer.
Because I knew exactly what my mother would have said.
She would have said Emma was paranoid.
She would have told everyone pregnancy was making her irrational.
And judging by those family messages, people would have believed her.
Emma continued.
“So I left it.”
“And then?”
“I started checking.”
“Checking what?”
“The router.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“I looked up how to see what devices were connected to our Wi-Fi.”
That surprised me.
Emma had never been especially interested in technology.
She must have seen that on my face.
“I learned.”
She wiped at one eye.
“I had to.”
She pulled up a screenshot.
A list of connected devices.
Two phones.
Our television.
My laptop.
Her tablet.
The baby monitor.
And one device named simply:
IPC_02.
“That was the camera?”
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“It disappeared from the network sometimes.”
“When?”
“Usually when your mother was at the house.”
I looked up sharply.
“What do you mean?”
Emma opened another set of screenshots.
She had been recording dates.
Times.
Devices.
On Tuesday at 2:14 p.m., IPC_02 connected.
At 2:21 p.m., my mother texted Emma:
“Dropped something at the front door.”
On Friday at 10:08 a.m., IPC_02 connected.
At 10:11, Emma’s doorbell camera recorded my mother entering with the emergency key.
On Sunday at 4:32 p.m., IPC_02 disconnected.
At 4:34, my mother texted:
“Just left. Your kitchen window was unlocked again.”
I stared at that last message.
“Our kitchen window wasn’t unlocked.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“I checked it that morning.”
My chest tightened.
“So she was inside.”
“Yes.”
“Again.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew?”
“I suspected.”
“Emma, why didn’t you change the locks?”
“Because she would have known I knew.”
That answer stopped me.
Emma lowered her voice.
“I was scared of what she would do if she realized I was documenting her.”
Documenting.
The word hit me differently now.
“You have more than screenshots.”
She looked at me.
“Yes.”
“How much more?”
“A lot.”
My anger began turning into something else.
Not anger at Emma.
Fear.
“How long have you been keeping records?”
“Since the dresser.”
She opened a folder.
Photos.
Screenshots.
Voice recordings.
Notes.
Dates.
Descriptions.
Every unexpected visit.
Every message from my mother.
Every time Caleb showed up without warning.
Every family member who repeated something Emma had told only one person.
I scrolled slowly.
Then I stopped on one note.
June 14.
11:37 p.m.
Heard someone outside nursery.
Daniel asleep.
Door opened.
Footsteps left after approximately one minute.
I looked at her.
“That was me?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“You were asleep beside me.”
My stomach turned.
“Did you check?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Nobody was there.”
“So somebody entered the house and left before you could see them.”
“I think so.”
“Why didn’t the doorbell camera catch them?”
Emma looked at me.
“That’s when I realized someone had access to the camera account.”
I felt cold.
“Our doorbell camera?”
She nodded.
“There were gaps.”
I stared at her.
“What kind of gaps?”
“Clips missing.”
“You can delete those remotely.”
“I know.”
“Who had the password?”
“You.”
“Only me.”
Emma didn’t answer.
And suddenly I remembered something.
Months earlier, my mother had called while I was at work.
She said she was bringing over groceries and wanted to know whether the porch camera would alert Emma and wake her from a nap.
I had jokingly told her the password so she could mute the alerts.
I had forgotten all about it.
I sat down.
“Oh God.”
Emma watched me.
“I gave it to her.”
“I know.”
“You knew?”
“I found the login alert.”
I covered my face with both hands.
I had handed my mother access to our cameras.
I had handed her a key.
I had dismissed warning signs.
I had walked around thinking I was keeping peace while Emma was quietly building a file on people I trusted.
“I’m sorry.”
Emma shook her head.
“Don’t do that right now.”
“I gave her access.”
“You didn’t give her permission to use it like this.”
“But I made it possible.”
“And she chose what to do with it.”
For the first time that night, Emma reached for my hand.
Her fingers wrapped around mine.
Then her phone buzzed.
A message from Denise.
“Are you still at the hospital?”
Emma typed:
“Yes.”
Denise replied:
“Do not go home.”
We both froze.
Another message.
“Margaret knows the police found the camera.”
I looked at Emma.
“How?”
Denise continued.
“She called Caleb screaming.”
Then:
“She says this is all Emma’s fault.”
Then:
“She says Emma set her up.”
I almost laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because it was so predictable.
“She put a camera in our house and now Emma set her up?”
Emma looked at me.
“We don’t know she put it there.”
I turned.
“What?”
“Caleb’s message.”
She pointed at my phone.
“He told you to ask me why I knew.”
“So?”
“So if Caleb knew the police found it before we told anyone, maybe he installed it.”
That thought had already crossed my mind.
But now another detail clicked into place.
“Your mother barely understands this stuff.”
Emma nodded.
“Caleb does.”
My brother worked in home security installation for almost four years before moving into construction.
He knew cameras.
Routers.
Locks.
Entry systems.
And he had copied our key.
I stood.
“I’m calling the officer back.”
Emma touched my arm.
“Wait.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s something else.”
I stared at her.
Again.
She opened one of her audio files.
The date was eight days earlier.
“What is that?”
“I recorded this after your mother came over.”
“Did she know?”
“No.”
Emma pressed play.
At first, I heard only muffled voices.
Then my mother’s voice became clear.
“You keep thinking this house belongs to you.”
Emma’s recorded voice answered.
“It does belong to us.”
My mother laughed.
“Daniel bought it.”
“We bought it.”
“With his money.”
“That’s not true.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
My mother’s voice lowered.
“Men get tired of women who make everything difficult.”
Emma said nothing.
My mother continued.
“You think because you’re having his baby you’re permanent.”
A pause.
“You’re not.”
My jaw clenched.
Then Emma’s recorded voice:
“Please leave.”
My mother:
“You should be careful telling people to leave places you may not own much longer.”
The recording ended.
I stared at the phone.
“What was that supposed to mean?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Did she say anything else?”
Emma hesitated.
“Yes.”
She opened another recording.
This one was shorter.
My mother’s voice:
“If you keep forcing Daniel to choose, don’t be surprised when someone shows him what you’ve really been doing.”
Emma:
“What does that mean?”
My mother:
“You’ll find out.”
The recording stopped.
I felt sick.
“What had you really been doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing she could twist?”
Emma looked away.
That was enough.
“What?”
“It’s not what you think.”
“What is it?”
She took a long breath.
“After I found the camera, I started moving money.”
I stared at her.
“What money?”
“Mine.”
“From where?”
“My personal account.”
“Why?”
“So I could leave if I had to.”
The sentence cut deeper than I expected.
“You were planning to leave me?”
“No.”
“Then why would you need to leave?”
“I didn’t know whether you would believe me.”
Her voice cracked.
“If your entire family said I was unstable and your mother said I was dangerous and Caleb backed her up, I didn’t know what would happen.”
I sat beside her again.
“I would have believed you.”
“You believe me now.”
“I would have believed you then.”
Emma looked at me sadly.
“You laughed when I asked if pregnancy had changed me.”
I looked down.
She wasn’t saying it to hurt me.
That made it worse.
She was telling me why she had been afraid.
“I thought you were joking.”
“I know.”
“But you weren’t.”
“No.”
I nodded slowly.
“I understand.”
We sat silently for a moment.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Mr. Carter?”
“Yes.”
“This is Officer Ramirez. I’m at your residence.”
“Did you find anything else?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
My heart accelerated.
“What?”
“We removed the second camera.”
“Okay.”
“It wasn’t connected to your home internet when we checked.”
I looked at Emma.
“Then how was it recording?”
“That’s what we were trying to determine.”
Another pause.
“The device has local storage.”
“What does that mean?”
“A memory card.”
My stomach tightened.
“How much?”
“We won’t know until it’s examined properly.”
“Can you tell when it was installed?”
“Not yet.”
Then his voice changed.
“There’s another issue.”
“What?”
“The camera wasn’t aimed where we initially thought.”
I glanced at Emma.
“What do you mean?”
“The bookshelf looked like it was aimed at the hallway.”
“Right.”
“But once we removed it, we found the mounting bracket was adjustable.”
I waited.
“It had recently been angled toward your bedroom door.”
Emma’s face drained.
I swallowed.
“Why would someone watch our bedroom?”
“We don’t know.”
Then Officer Ramirez asked:
“Do you keep important documents in there?”
I immediately thought of our closet safe.
Passports.
Birth certificates.
House documents.
Some cash.
“Yes.”
“Check them when we release the house.”
“Do you think someone robbed us?”
“There’s no obvious theft.”
“Then what are you saying?”
He paused.
“I’m saying someone may have been watching for when you opened something.”
I felt the room become smaller.
“The safe.”
“Possibly.”
I looked at Emma.
She understood immediately.
“My medical papers.”
“What?”
Her eyes widened.
“I kept copies of everything in the safe.”
“What everything?”
“The bruising photos.”
“The screenshots?”
“Some.”
“The recordings?”
“A backup drive.”
I stood.
“Officer, please check the bedroom closet.”
“We already did.”
I held my breath.
“The safe is there.”
“Is it open?”
“No.”
Relief lasted about half a second.
“But there are marks around the keypad.”
My stomach dropped.
“What kind of marks?”
“Hard to say.”
Then:
“Do you know if anyone else knows the code?”
“No.”
Emma suddenly said:
“My birthday.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“The code is my birthday.”
I closed my eyes.
My mother knew Emma’s birthday.
Caleb knew Emma’s birthday.
Half my family knew it.
I had chosen it because I thought it was easy to remember.
“Can you open it?”
The officer asked.
“Not without us there.”
“Then we’ll leave it untouched.”
I thanked him and ended the call.
Emma stared at the floor.
“They were looking for my evidence.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Yes, we do.”
I couldn’t argue.
Then Denise sent another message.
This one was only a photograph.
A screenshot of a conversation between her and Caleb.
Caleb:
“Did she keep copies?”
Denise:
“Copies of what?”
Caleb:
“The stuff she’s been collecting.”
Denise:
“How would I know?”
Caleb:
“Mom says there’s a drive.”
I stared at the screen.
Mom says there’s a drive.
Emma whispered:
“How did she know?”
I turned to her.
“Did you ever tell anyone?”
“No.”
“Not Denise?”
“No.”
“Not your sister?”
“No.”
“Anybody?”
“No.”
There was only one way my mother could know about the backup drive.
She had either seen Emma hide it.
Or she had seen it through the camera.
My phone buzzed again.
Another message from Denise.
“Daniel, I think you need to know why your mother is so desperate to get that drive.”
I typed:
“Why?”
Three dots appeared.
Then vanished.
Then appeared again.
Finally:
“Because Emma isn’t the first woman in this family she did this to.”
I read the sentence twice.
Emma leaned closer.
“What does that mean?”
Before I could answer, another message came.
“You need to ask Caleb about Rachel.”
I froze.
Rachel.
Caleb’s ex-wife.
A woman who had disappeared from nearly every family conversation after their divorce four years earlier.
My mother always said Rachel had been unstable.
Selfish.
Manipulative.
Dangerous.
She said Rachel had tried to turn Caleb against the family.
She said Rachel lied constantly.
She said Rachel left without warning.
I suddenly remembered something I had never questioned.
Rachel had been pregnant when she left.
And none of us had ever met the baby.
Emma looked at me.
“Who is Rachel?”
I felt my stomach turn.
“My brother’s ex-wife.”
Emma stared at me.
“And what happened to her?”
I opened my mouth.
Then stopped.
Because for the first time in four years, I realized I didn’t actually know.
I only knew the story my mother had told us.
