Chapter 3 - The Camera Had Been Installed for an Ordinary Reason
The black security camera above the nursery door had nothing to do with Meredith originally.
Caleb installed it after Elara began pulling herself upright in the crib.
It was practical.
A parent worried about falls.
Nothing more.
The camera recorded motion clips to a secure household system.
June had viewing access during work hours.
Caleb had administrator access.
Meredith had none.
Or she was not supposed to.
About six weeks before the iron incident, the camera began going offline.
Not permanently.
Ten minutes here.
Twenty there.
Usually during afternoons when June was doing laundry or preparing bottles.
June mentioned it to Caleb.
He said:
“Probably the Wi-Fi.”
Then Meredith laughed.
“You’re becoming paranoid.”
June stopped mentioning it.
But she noticed something else.
Whenever the camera went offline, Elara became unusually distressed afterward.
Once June found the baby screaming while every stuffed toy had been thrown from the crib.
Another time Elara’s bottle was on the floor and Meredith claimed the baby had knocked it away.
Then June found a red pressure mark on Elara’s wrist.
Meredith said:
“She pinched herself between the crib bars.”
June did not believe her.
But suspicion was not proof.
So June began checking the camera system herself.
That was when she discovered something Caleb had forgotten.
The nursery camera did not rely only on cloud storage.
It contained a local memory card.
Even when someone disabled remote access—
the internal recording sometimes continued.
June copied what she found onto a USB.
Then she began carrying that USB against her body.
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Because by then, she was afraid somebody inside the house knew exactly how to erase evidence.
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