Chapter 9 - The Man Behind the Glass
Elliot Bell had always treated me as if I were an accessory to Lucas's career.
At dinners, he asked about Chloe for thirty seconds before turning back to tax strategy and investor meetings.
He called me “the organized one” when he wanted me to arrange a reservation.
He called me “lucky” when he wanted me to stop talking about work.
For years, I mistook condescension for friendliness.
Now I wondered how much of my family life he had watched from behind that pleasant expression.
Detective Reed told us investigators were seeking records from the camera company and the hospital access systems.
A separate investigation into possible financial misconduct was developing from the account trail.
She refused to tell me whether Elliot was a suspect.
I stopped asking questions she couldn't answer and started collecting what I could legally access myself.
I went through old emails from Northline and found a holiday message from Elliot inviting us to an open house at his office.
The photographs attached to it showed a glass-walled conference room, a row of monitors, and a large framed city photograph behind a reception desk.
The same framed photograph appeared in the reflection of a picture Lucas had texted me months earlier.
In Lucas's picture, a laptop stood open on a desk.
I had assumed he was at work.
But now I could see a small home-camera dashboard on the screen.
Our dashboard.
I forwarded both images to Reed and told her how I'd recognized the interface.
I did not try to enlarge or alter the originals.
That afternoon, Chloe met a therapist specializing in young children who had experienced frightening events.
The therapist focused on safety, predictability, and giving Chloe choices.
They played with colored blocks and practiced naming feelings without forcing an account of what had happened.
Afterward, Chloe wanted to stop for strawberry ice cream.
I bought two cups and sat beside her in the car while snow piled along the curb.
“Are we going back to our old house?” she asked.
“I don't think we'll live there again.”
She stirred her ice cream.
“Good.”
The simple answer hurt more than a scream would have.
She looked up at me.
“Will Daddy be mad?”
“That's for grown-ups to handle,” I said.
“You don't have to fix anybody's feelings.”
She considered that carefully.
Then she offered Mr. Whiskers a pretend spoonful of ice cream.
When we returned, Denise had left me a voicemail.
A person claiming to represent Northline had requested copies of documents I'd submitted in our family-law case.
The request didn't follow an ordinary authorized process, and Denise had refused it.
Shortly after, Lucas emailed an offer to settle.
He proposed a generous monthly allowance and exclusive use of the apartment.
In exchange, he wanted me to agree not to discuss “private family matters” with anyone except our joint therapist.
I read the email with growing disbelief.
“Does he think he can buy silence?” I asked Denise.
“He may be hoping you'll value peace more than the cost of the terms.”
Then she pointed to a clause buried near the end.
It required me to surrender all copies of household video files and related account information.
Lucas was willing to pay me more money than I'd seen in years.
May you like
But what he truly wanted was a collection of recordings he insisted no longer existed.
