Chapter 4: The Missing Thirty-Seven Seconds
For several seconds after the call ended, I couldn't move.
Daniel's final words kept repeating in my head.
The footage isn't the only thing she changed.
I stared at the monitor, where my son's frightened face remained frozen in the hallway.
Changed what?
The recording?
The story she had told him?
Or something that had been happening in my house long before that evening?
I picked up my phone and called him back.
Straight to voicemail.
I tried again.
Nothing.
Then I called Claire.
She answered on the second ring.
“Dad?””
“Where are you?””
“I'm still at your house. I went upstairs to get my purse.””
“Have you spoken to your brother?””
“No. Why?””
“Because he just called me and told me Mia changed something.””
Silence.
“Claire?””
“I'm here.””
“What do you know?””
She exhaled shakily.
“Dad, I don't know what you're talking about.””
I closed my eyes.
It was the same answer everyone seemed determined to give me that night.
I don't know.
I don't understand.
Let's wait until tomorrow.
But tomorrow wouldn't restore my son's faith in me. It wouldn't erase Mia's accusation or make the image of Daniel standing between us disappear.
And it certainly wouldn't explain why my daughter sounded terrified.
“Come into the study,” I told her.
“I want you to see something.””
She appeared in the doorway less than a minute later.
When I showed her the recording, she leaned toward the screen.
For the first few seconds, she said nothing.
Then Mia appeared beside the bedroom window.
Claire covered her mouth.
“Oh, my God.””
I paused the video.
“Watch her eyes.””
I replayed the moment when Mia looked at the camera before tearing her blouse.
Claire shook her head slowly.
“She knew it was recording.””
“Yes.””
“And she wanted you to notice it.””
“That's what I think.””
Claire backed away from the desk.
“Dad, stop the video.””
“Why?””
“Just stop it.””
I turned toward her.
“What is it?””
She pressed both hands against her temples.
“I need to tell you something.””
I waited.
“About six months ago, Daniel asked me whether you still kept your financial records in the study.””
My stomach tightened.
“What?””
“He said he was helping Mia organize their finances and wanted to know whether you had any documents about the house.””
“What documents?””
“I don't know. That's what he told me.””
I stared at my daughter.
“Why didn't you tell me?””
“Because it didn't seem important at the time.””
I turned back to the monitor.
Six months ago.
That was when I'd installed the cameras after my neighbor's home had been broken into.
It was also around the time Daniel began asking unusual questions about my estate.
Nothing direct.
Nothing that would have alarmed me if taken separately.
He'd asked whether I'd updated my will after Margaret's death.
He'd wondered whether I planned to keep the house forever.
He'd even joked that an old man living alone in a large house needed to think about the future.
I'd assumed he was worried about me.
Now I wasn't sure.
“Claire, did your brother ask you anything else?””
She hesitated.
“Once, he asked whether Mom had left you any life insurance money.””
I slowly turned around.
“What did you tell him?””
“That I didn't know the details.””
“Did he explain why he wanted to know?””
“He said he was worried you were spending too much on the house.””
I almost laughed.
The house had been paid off for years. My pension covered my expenses, and my savings were more than sufficient for the rest of my life.
Daniel knew that.
He'd helped me review my accounts after Margaret died.
Unless he had been reviewing them for a different reason.
I returned to the recording.
This time, I watched the moment when Mia entered the hallway.
She looked at her phone, then at the camera.
A few seconds later, I appeared at the top of the stairs.
The recording continued normally until Mia began screaming.
But when Daniel appeared, something strange happened.
The image flickered.
For less than a second, the timestamp disappeared.
Then it returned.
I leaned closer.
“Did you see that?””
Claire nodded.
I rewound the footage.
The flicker happened again.
I checked the recording timeline.
The system showed continuous footage, but the file's duration didn't match the length of the event.
Thirty-seven seconds were missing.
Not thirty-seven seconds of darkness.
Not a frozen image.
Thirty-seven seconds that should have been there simply weren't.
I checked the system's motion log.
The sensor had registered movement during the missing interval.
Someone had been in the hallway.
The camera had detected it.
But the footage was gone.
“Can you restore it?”” Claire asked.
“I don't know yet.””
I opened the system's settings and checked the storage history.
The recordings were saved locally, with a backup to an account I controlled.
I hadn't touched the settings since installing the system.
But the administrative access log showed a login earlier that evening.
At 6:42 p.m.
I looked at the clock on the wall.
That was before dinner.
Before the accusation.
Before I had even climbed the stairs.
Someone had accessed my security system while my family was gathered around my dining table.
My hands went cold.
“Dad?”” Claire whispered.
I pointed to the screen.
“Someone logged into the system.””
“Who?””
“I don't know.””
“Could it have been a technical problem?””
“Possibly.””
But I didn't believe that.
Not after seeing Mia deliberately look at the camera.
Not after hearing Daniel tell me she had changed something.
I checked the access log again.
The login had come from a device I didn't recognize.
The account had used my administrator credentials.
I was certain I hadn't shared those credentials with anyone.
Then I remembered the afternoon Daniel had visited three weeks earlier.
He'd offered to help me update the security system because he said the software was outdated.
I'd handed him my laptop.
He'd spent nearly twenty minutes in the study while I made coffee.
At the time, I'd been grateful.
Now I wondered what else he'd done.
Claire sat down beside me.
“Dad, what if Daniel knows something about this?””
“He called me, didn't he?””
“But he told you not to watch the camera.””
“He also told me the footage had been changed.””
She stared at the screen.
“Maybe he's trying to protect you.””
“From what?””
She didn't answer.
I checked the backup account.
The latest cloud recording ended at 8:16 p.m., several minutes before Mia and I entered the hallway.
That was strange.
The local system showed footage continuing beyond that point, but the cloud backup had stopped.
I opened the backup settings.
The automatic synchronization feature had been disabled.
At 6:42 p.m.
The same minute as the unfamiliar login.
Someone hadn't merely removed thirty-seven seconds.
Someone had also prevented the complete recording from being backed up.
I leaned back in my chair.
For the first time that evening, my fear began turning into anger.
Whoever had done this had known exactly what they were doing.
They'd anticipated that I might use the camera to defend myself.
They'd taken steps to make sure the evidence wouldn't be available.
And they had done it before the accusation ever happened.
“Claire,” I said, “I need you to tell me something honestly.””
She looked at me.
“Has Daniel been having money problems?””
Her face went pale.
I knew then that I had asked the right question.
“Claire?””
She looked toward the closed study door.
“He told me everything was fine.””
“That isn't what I asked.””
She pressed her lips together.
Finally, she whispered, “I saw a letter in his car last month. It was from a bank.””
“What kind of letter?””
“I couldn't read the whole thing, but I saw the words final notice.””
I felt a familiar pressure in my chest.
Daniel had never been good at admitting when he was struggling.
When his business failed years earlier, he'd pretended everything was fine until I discovered he'd fallen behind on his mortgage.
I'd helped him then.
I would have helped him again.
All he had needed to do was ask.
“Did you tell Mia about the letter?””
“No.””
“Did you ask Daniel about it?””
“Yes. He told me it was nothing.””
I looked at the monitor.
The missing thirty-seven seconds suddenly seemed less like a technical problem and more like a carefully placed curtain.
Something had happened in my hallway.
Something someone desperately needed to hide.
And if money was involved, then my family dinner might not have been a family dinner at all.
It might have been the opening move in a plan I hadn't even realized existed.
I opened the security system's account history one final time.
A second device appeared in the list.
It had accessed the system on three separate occasions over the previous month.
The first login was at 11:18 p.m. on a Tuesday.
The second was just after midnight on a Friday.
The third was at 6:42 p.m. that evening.
I read the device description twice.
It was a phone.
And according to the system, the device belonged to someone who had access to my administrator account.
Someone in my family.
Claire leaned over my shoulder.
“Dad, whose phone is that?””
I clicked the details.
The registered device name appeared on the screen.
May you like
I recognized it immediately.
It belonged to Daniel.
