Chapter 19 - The Hidden Camera
I drove back to the Cherry Creek mansion, bypassing the main living areas and heading straight down to the basement utility room. Grant had always hated this room; he considered manual labor or technical maintenance beneath him, preferring to hire contractors for everything.
When we first built the house, I had installed a state-of-the-art, hardwired security system. Grant had complained about the lack of privacy, claiming he didn't want the staff feeling "monitored." Six months ago, he bragged that he had hired a tech firm to disable the interior cameras and transition us to a simple exterior alarm system.
He didn't know that my father’s company, Frost Industries, originally manufactured those security systems. You don't disable a Frost system with a contractor. You just force it into stealth mode.
I moved a heavy storage shelf aside, revealing a small, reinforced metal panel in the concrete wall. I typed a 16-digit alphanumeric code into the keypad. The panel popped open, revealing a glowing red server tower that had been silently recording and uploading encrypted footage to a private cloud for the last year.
I plugged my secure federal laptop into the server port and began downloading the last eight weeks of footage from the living room, the kitchen, and the hallways.
I didn't have time to watch all of it, but I scrubbed to the timestamp of two days ago.
The video loaded in high definition, complete with crystal-clear audio. The screen showed my beautiful living room. Vanessa was sitting on the couch, drinking wine. Little Lily was standing by the television, silently crying, holding her stomach.
"I'm hungry," Lily whispered on the video.
Grant walked into the frame, dressed in a sharp suit, adjusting his tie. He didn't bend down to comfort his daughter. He looked annoyed.
"Grant, make her shut up," Vanessa complained lazily from the couch. "She’s been whining for an hour."
Grant looked down at Lily with absolute disdain. "Go to your room, Lily. If you come out before tomorrow morning, I'm going to let Vanessa discipline you again. And you know how much you hate that."
May you like
Lily flinched, terrified, and ran out of the room. Grant walked over, kissed Vanessa deeply, and poured himself a drink.
I slammed the laptop shut, my hands shaking so violently I nearly dropped the machine. The medical report was clinical. But seeing it—hearing it—ignited a fire in my soul that would not be extinguished until Grant Carlisle was completely destroyed.
