Chapter 7 - The Housekeeper’s Call
At six the next morning, my former housekeeper called.
Marta Alvarez had worked at the estate longer than I had lived there.
Evelyn treated her like furniture.
Daniel barely remembered her last name.
I had helped Marta’s daughter receive a foundation scholarship, but she had never owed me loyalty.
Loyalty could not be purchased.
That was something Daniel had never understood.
Marta spoke in a whisper.
“Mrs. Whitmore, they are changing the locks.”
“It’s Claire.”
“You should not come here.”
“I won’t.”
“They took your clothes from the bedroom.”
“What did they do with them?”
“Mrs. Evelyn told me to pack everything in trash bags.”
I closed my eyes.
“Did you?”
“No.”
A small smile touched my face.
“What did you do?”
“I packed old curtains in the bags.”
“Your clothes are in the service apartment.”
“Thank you.”
“There is more.”
Marta told me Daniel had ordered the security company to erase all footage from the previous thirty days.
The company refused because the account was not in his name.
It was in mine.
My father had installed the original system after acquiring the property.
When Daniel renovated the estate, he had replaced the cameras but never changed the cloud administrator.
Marta had discovered the system was still recording.
The slap in the foyer had been captured from three angles.
So had the conversation before it.
So had Daniel taking my passport from the bedroom safe.
“Can you access the recordings?” I asked.
“The control panel needs your fingerprint.”
“I can log in remotely.”
“Do it quickly.”
“Why?”
“Mr. Daniel called another company.”
“They are coming this afternoon to remove the servers.”
I opened the security application.
My password failed.
I tried again.
Access denied.
Daniel had changed the user credentials.
Nora contacted the security company’s emergency department.
They confirmed that someone had submitted a change request using my signature.
The request had been approved.
Daniel had control of the cameras.
But he did not yet control the remote archive.
The archive could only be accessed with a recovery code stored inside the estate’s primary control panel.
The panel was behind a locked door in my father’s old library.
Daniel had never used that room.
Evelyn hated it because my father’s portrait still hung above the fireplace.
Marta had a key.
“I can retrieve the code,” she said.
“No.”
“It is only a piece of paper.”
“They may be watching you.”
“They never watch the help.”
Her answer was quiet.
It was also true.
An hour later, Marta entered the library carrying a tray of coffee as though she were cleaning.
She called me from inside the room.
I guided her to the panel.
She opened it and photographed the recovery code.
Then we heard the library door open.
Daniel’s voice came through the phone.
“Marta?”
May you like
She stopped breathing.
“What are you doing in here?”
