Chapter 3 - Sloane Thought She Had Disabled the Camera
Caleb called a doctor for Milo.
Then an ambulance for Rowan when she became dizzy.
Only after both were being evaluated did he open the home-security application.
The living-room camera showed:
OFFLINE.
Sloane saw the screen.
Relief appeared almost imperceptibly in her shoulders.
Caleb noticed.
“You knew it was offline?”
“No.”
“You looked relieved.”
“I’m not relieved. I’m terrified. Rowan just assaulted me.”
Caleb said nothing.
He called the company that installed the system.
The technician asked him to check the camera’s local status light.
Green.
The camera itself had never stopped recording.
Only the cloud connection had been disabled.
The system contained local storage specifically for internet outages.
Caleb’s voice became colder.
“Can you recover it?”
“Yes.”
Within an hour, the technician accessed the local recording.
Caleb watched the entire sequence.
Milo crawling.
Sloane approaching.
The kick.
Rowan rushing in.
Sloane reaching again.
Rowan knocking her hand away.
Sloane grabbing first.
Rowan’s single slap.
Sloane taking the vase.
The blow.
Then Caleb opening the door.
Nothing was ambiguous.
Nothing had been edited.
Caleb watched it twice.
When he finished, he checked the security log.
Cloud recording had been manually disabled at 4:11 p.m.
Twenty-six minutes before the incident.
The user account responsible was listed clearly.
SLOANE B.
Caleb stared at the screen.
The attack itself may have been an explosion of anger.
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But disabling the camera beforehand meant something had happened before Milo ever crawled toward that toy.
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