The forwarded message was there.
Unknown number.
She read it again.
*Don't let them find out you have the video.
They already know about the other one.*
The other one.
Not *another video*.
*The other one.* As if whoever sent this knew exactly what both recordings contained.
She opened her contacts and called the only person she trusted with something like this.
It rang three times.
Then: "Claire."
"Diane." Claire pressed her back against the wall.
"I need you to listen carefully and not ask me how I got this information yet."
Diane was a family law attorney.
She had known Claire for eleven years.
She didn't waste words.
"Go ahead."
"I have security footage of a child being physically restrained and having her hair cut against her will while she cried.
The child is six.
The people in the footage are her grandmother and her aunt.
The child's father has been unreachable for three days and the child has been told nothing." Claire paused.
"I also have reason to believe there is a second recording.
From a camera the father installed in the child's bedroom after an incident involving the grandmother."
The line was quiet for a moment.
"Is the child safe right now?" Diane asked.
"She's with me."
"And the grandmother β is she in the same building?"
"Same building.
Twenty feet away."
"Okay." Diane's voice shifted into the register Claire recognized.
The working register.
"Don't go back into that room without me on the phone.
Don't hand over the tablet to anyone.
And find that second recording before they do."
"I don't know how to access it.
It was on Marcus's phone."
"Does he use cloud backup?"
Claire thought.
She had watched Marcus set up his phone once, two years ago, standing in her kitchen while Lily slept on the couch.
She had teased him about being the last person on earth to still do manual backups.
He had laughed and said he didn't trust the cloud with anything that mattered.
Except Lily's camera.
He had set that one up differently.
She remembered him mentioning it, offhand, in the way people mention things they want someone else to quietly remember.
*It uploads automatically.
Even if something happens to my phone, it's there.*
"It might be on a separate account," Claire said.
"Specifically for that camera."
"Find the login," Diane said.
"That's your next step.
Everything else waits."
Claire ended the call and stood at the window for a moment.
The garden below was perfectly kept.
Roses in careful rows.
A stone path leading to a locked gate.
She turned and walked back toward Noah and Lily.
Lily had finished the cake.
She was sitting with her knees pulled up, her jagged, uneven hair falling forward over her face.
She looked very small against the wide hallway floor.
"Noah," Claire said, crouching down.
"Did Marcus ever give you any account information?
Anything for a camera system?
A backup drive?"
Noah frowned.
Then something moved across his face.
Recognition.
"He gave me an envelope," he said slowly.
"About two weeks ago.
He said to keep it somewhere safe and not mention it to anyone in the house." He looked at Claire.
"He said I'd know when to open it."
Claire looked at him.
"Where is it?"
"My car," Noah said.
"Locked in the glove box."
From behind the glass door at the end of the hallway, Evelyn's shadow moved across the frosted panel.
Slow.
Deliberate.
She was standing just on the other side, listening.
Claire stood up.
"Get your keys."
The parking area outside was cold and grey, the kind of flat afternoon light that makes everything look slightly unreal.
Noah's car was parked at the far end, away from the other vehicles.
He walked fast.
Claire kept pace beside him, one hand resting lightly on Lily's shoulder.
Lily hadn't asked where they were going.
She just walked.
Noah unlocked the car and opened the passenger door for Lily, then moved around to the driver's side and popped the glove box.
He pushed aside the registration papers and a folded map β he was the only person Claire knew who still kept a paper map β and pulled out a plain white envelope.
His name was written on the front in Marcus's handwriting.
Nothing else.
He held it out to Claire.
"It's addressed to you," she said.
"Open it," he said.
"Please."
She took it.
The seal had never been broken.
She slid her finger along the flap and pulled out a single folded sheet of paper and a small card.
The card had two lines on it.
An email address and a password.
The paper had more.
Claire read it standing beside the open car door, the cold air moving through the parking area.
She read it once quickly, then again slowly.
Noah watched her face.
"What does it say?"
She looked up.
Lily was in the passenger seat, her feet not quite reaching the floor, looking out the windshield at nothing in particular.
Claire lowered her voice.
"He knew something was wrong.
He wrote this two weeks ago." She looked back at the paper.
"He says Evelyn has been telling him that Lily's behavior has been getting worse.
That Lily has been lying, stealing, acting out.
He says he started watching the camera footage from Lily's room and what he saw didn't match anything Evelyn was describing."
"What did he see?"
"He doesn't say exactly.
He says the footage will speak for itself." Claire held up the card.
"This is the login for the camera account.
He says there are forty-two saved clips." She paused.
"He also says that three days before he wrote this letter, Evelyn told him something about his finances.