Chapter 4 - The House That Watched Her
By midnight, Claire was in the maternity triage unit with monitors around her belly.
The contractions had slowed. The baby was fine. Dr. Patel called them "stress-related uterine irritability," then looked directly at Adrian and added, "Stress is not harmless just because people can't see it."
Adrian heard the judgment beneath the medical language.
He deserved some of it.
He had spent seven months crossing time zones, building a merger, telling himself Claire was safe because she lived behind gates and cameras with a house full of staff.
He had confused security with safety.
When Claire finally slept, Adrian stepped into the hall and called Noah.
"Pull the home-security archive for the last sixty days."
"Already started."
"And?"
"Forty-six hours are missing."
Adrian closed his eyes.
"Random?"
"No. Mostly daytime blocks when Evelyn was at the house. Someone with administrator access disabled recording manually."
"Who has admin access?"
"You. Claire. Evelyn. And Marcus Dean."
Marcus was the estate manager. He had worked for the Vale family for twelve years.
"Where is Marcus?"
"His access card was used at the house twenty minutes after you left for the hospital."
Adrian turned toward the elevator.
"Send security there now."
He called the house. No answer.
He called Marcus. Straight to voicemail.
Then Claire's phone lit up on the chair beside her bed.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
Adrian answered.
A man's voice whispered, "Mr. Vale?"
"Who is this?"
"You don't know me. I work nights for the security contractor."
"What do you want?"
"Your estate manager just removed two storage drives from the camera room."
Adrian's pulse kicked.
"Where is he now?"
"Garage. Loading a black Range Rover."
"Stop him."
The man gave a breathless laugh. "Sir, I make twenty-two dollars an hour. I'm not tackling Marcus Dean."
"Then keep eyes on him. Security is coming."
A crash sounded through the phone.
Then shouting.
The line went dead.
Adrian was already moving.
He texted Noah one word: GARAGE.
Before the elevator doors opened, another message arrived.
NOAH: Adrian, Marcus just used Evelyn's gate code.
May you like
Then a second.
NOAH: And Claire's medical file was copied to an external drive this afternoon.
