Chapter 3 - The Camera That Went Dark
Mason Reed arrived eleven minutes later.
He came through the front door in a gray sport coat with a tablet tucked beneath one arm and rain on his shoulders.
The anniversary guests had mostly been moved into the formal living room.
Nobody had gone home.
David had asked everyone to stay until Mason could determine whether the missing photograph and disabled camera involved someone at the party.
That request had produced offended looks, nervous laughter, and one angry uncle who announced that this was absurd.
Mason ignored all of them.
He greeted David with a brief nod.
Mason asked the caterers for their arrival photographs as well.
Several had taken quick setup pictures for the event company.
One image showed the upstairs landing in the background.
The hallway camera was still connected at 6:34.
Seven minutes later, it was dark.
The window around Sarah narrowed further, and so did her room for explanation.
Then he looked at Leo.
"You doing okay, buddy?"
Leo nodded even though he clearly was not.
Mason did not press him.
"I want to show your dad something."
Sarah stood near the fireplace in the dark green dress.
Her hair was dry now.
Her makeup had been repaired.
If not for the damp white gown stuffed into a laundry bag in the downstairs bathroom, no one would have guessed what happened less than an hour earlier.
Mason set the tablet on the dining table.
He opened an image.
The quality was poor.
While Mason examined the disabled camera, David pulled the security history from the previous thirty days.
The hallway feed had failed twice before.
Both outages were brief.
Seven minutes on a Tuesday afternoon.
Eleven minutes the previous Saturday.
David checked the household calendar.
On the Tuesday, he had been at Halston headquarters.
Leo had been at school.
Sarah had been home alone with Rosa.
On the Saturday, David and Leo had gone to a hardware store.
Sarah stayed home because she claimed to have a headache.
Neither outage had triggered an alert because the system automatically reconnected.
Tonight was different only because the cable had remained unplugged.
Mason photographed the logs.
"Could be coincidence," he said.
David nodded without believing it.
Rosa stood nearby twisting the edge of her apron.
"Mrs. Sarah asked me once where the old cameras stored recordings," she said.
David looked at her.
"When?"
"Maybe two months ago."
"Why?"
"She said she wanted to know whether the system could recover a package theft."
No package had been stolen.
David remembered because Sarah had complained about a delayed delivery that arrived the next morning.
Another small explanation that had once been good enough now felt carefully chosen.
The picture had been taken by a traffic camera across a gas station lot on a rainy October evening.
Emma's silver SUV sat beneath the bright station lights.
A woman stood beside the driver's door.
Her face was turned away.
Wind had lifted the bottom edge of her black shirt.
On the left side of her abdomen was a dark crescent wrapped in a thornlike pattern.
Three small dots or stars sat beneath it.
Leo whispered before anyone else spoke.
"That is it."
Sarah crossed her arms.
"It could be anyone."
Mason zoomed in.
"It could."
"Then stop looking at me like I am under arrest."
"You are not under arrest."
"Good."
"But I would still like to ask you where you were on October 17 two years ago."
Sarah gave him a cold smile.
"I have no idea."
"You do not remember the day David's wife died?"
"She was not David's wife to me then."
Claire's face tightened.
Sarah corrected herself.
"You know what I mean."
Mason did not react.
"When did you first meet David?"
"At the Hollis Foundation dinner."
David answered automatically.
"March 8 last year."
Mason looked at him.
"You are sure?"
"Yes."
Sarah laughed softly.
"He remembers because I spilled champagne on him."
David did not smile.
That memory had once seemed charming.
Now it felt rehearsed.
Mason looked back at Sarah.
"And before March 8, you had never met him?"
"No."
"Never met Emma?"
"No."
"Never had any reason to be at the Route 18 gas station?"
"I drove that road sometimes."
"With Emma?"
"No."
Mason folded his arms.
"Then the woman in this image is not you?"
"Correct."
Leo stepped closer to the tablet.
"It is her."
Sarah's eyes hardened.
David noticed before she could hide it.
"Leo," Mason said, "how do you know?"
The boy pointed at the image.
"The stars are crooked."
Mason zoomed farther.
The three small marks beneath the crescent were not perfectly aligned.
The middle one sat slightly lower than the other two.
Leo looked at Sarah.
"Hers are like that."
Sarah's face went rigid.
David had only seen the tattoo for a few seconds beneath wet silk, but now that Leo said it, he remembered.
The middle star had been lower.
Sarah took a breath.
"Millions of people have tattoos."
"Not millions with the same exact design," Claire said.
"You would be surprised."
Mason tapped the screen.
"I can send it for comparison if you are willing to let us photograph yours."
Sarah stared at him.
"No."
The room became quiet.
"That is your right," Mason said.
"Good."
"But refusing will not make me forget what I just saw."
"Then get a warrant."
David looked at her.
The words were too sharp.
Too prepared.
Sarah realized it and softened her face.
"I am sorry."
She pressed a hand to her forehead.
"I am humiliated, exhausted, and I have a room full of people watching my husband interrogate me because a child found an old picture."
"The picture is missing," David said.
"Exactly."
"That does not help you."
"It does not help anyone."
Mason closed the image.
"Let's talk about the hallway camera."
David led him to the security panel.
The system showed five active cameras and one disconnected device.
The upstairs hallway feed had gone offline at 6:41 p.m.
The party began at 7:00.
Leo said he last saw the photograph at approximately 5:30.
He returned to his room at 6:55 for a sweater and noticed the door open.
That left a fourteen-minute window after the camera went dark and before the first guests entered the house.
Mason asked who had been home.
David counted them.
David.
Sarah.
Leo.
The caterers.
Rosa, the housekeeper.
Two florists.
And Michael, who had arrived early with a case of wine.
Sarah looked immediately at Michael.
He saw it.
"Do not start."
"I did not say anything."
"You did not have to."
Mason raised a hand.
"Who knows how to disconnect the cameras?"
David answered.
"Anyone could unplug one."
"Would the system record it?"
"Yes."
"Any password required?"
"Not to physically unplug a camera."
Mason looked at the hallway monitor.
"Where is the camera mounted?"
They went upstairs.
The small device sat above a framed family photograph near the staircase landing.
Its cable had been pulled from the wall adapter.
Mason crouched.
"No damage."
He looked at David.
"Whoever did it knew they only needed the feed off for a few minutes."
Sarah folded her arms.
"Or a caterer bumped it."
Mason looked at the cord.
"The adapter is behind a decorative console and six inches below the outlet."
Sarah said nothing.
Rosa appeared at the top of the stairs.
She had worked for David's family for twelve years and had known Leo since the day he came home from the hospital.
She looked nervous.
"Mr. David?"
"What is it?"
"I may have seen someone up here."
Sarah turned.
Mason stood.
"Who?"
Rosa twisted her hands in her apron.
"I do not know if it matters."
"Tell me anyway."
"Around six forty, I brought clean hand towels upstairs for the guest bathroom."
"And?"
"I heard a drawer close in Leo's room."
Leo looked at her.
"Did you see who was inside?"
Rosa hesitated.
Then she looked directly at Sarah.
Sarah's expression did not change.
"I saw Mrs. Sarah come out."
No one spoke.
David looked at his wife.
"You said you never went into his room."
Sarah's face remained still.
"Rosa is mistaken."
Rosa looked hurt.
"I am not."
"You were carrying towels."
"I saw you."
"You saw someone in a green dress."
"You were wearing white before the party."
That detail landed hard.
Sarah's eyes narrowed.
Rosa continued.
"You had the white dress on already."
"Then you are confusing the time."
"I looked at the clock because the caterer asked me how long until guests arrived."
David stepped closer to Sarah.
"Why were you in Leo's room?"
"I was not."
"Rosa saw you."
"Rosa is sixty-three and works fourteen-hour days."
Rosa's mouth opened.
David's voice turned cold.
"Do not attack her."
"I am not attacking her."
"Then answer the question."
Sarah looked at Mason.
"Am I required to stand here while my husband calls me a liar?"
Mason's expression did not change.
"No."
She turned to leave.
Leo spoke behind her.
"You took it."
Sarah stopped.
"Leo, enough."
"You took Mom's picture."
Sarah turned around.
"And what would I do with it?"
Leo's voice shook.
"Destroy it."
Her face changed.
Only for a fraction of a second.
But Mason saw it too.
A door slammed downstairs.
Michael called from the foyer.
"David!"
They hurried down.
Michael stood beside the open front door with a black leather clutch in his hand.
"Someone left this in the hedge by the driveway."
Sarah stared at the clutch.
David recognized it.
It belonged to Sarah.
"Why was that outside?"
She shook her head.
"I do not know."
Michael set it on the entry table.
Mason put on gloves before opening it.
Inside were lipstick, a compact mirror, two credit cards, a key, and a folded piece of glossy paper.
Mason pulled the paper out carefully.
Leo gasped.
"That's it."
It was the missing photograph.
Sarah's face went white.
David stepped closer.
The image showed a younger Sarah beside a black sedan with an unfamiliar man.
Her shirt was cropped high enough to expose the crescent-and-thorns tattoo on her stomach.
On the back, written in Emma's blue ink, were seven words.
If something happens, remember the moon.
Below the sentence was a date.
October 12.
Five days before Emma died.
And beneath the date was a name David recognized immediately.
Mark Voss.
His closest friend.
His business partner.
May you like
The man standing beside Sarah in the photograph.
