Chapter 3 - DeletedI stared at Evelyn’s phone as if Detective Moreno had spoken another language.
“Missing?”
The detective continued.
“The system recorded normally until eleven forty-two yesterday morning.”
“Then there’s a gap.”
“Recording resumes at three seventeen.”
Lunch had started shortly after noon.
Callan had struck me around one thirty.
The missing window covered everything.
Evelyn’s jaw tightened.
“Who has administrator access?”
“Melissa Harrington.”
Detective Moreno paused.
“And Callan.”
I almost laughed.
Of course they did.
“Can you prove someone deleted it?”
“We’re working on that.”
The call ended.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
My parents’ home felt tiny after the Harrington mansion.
But sitting at my mother’s kitchen table, surrounded by chipped mugs and old photographs, I felt safer than I had during my entire honeymoon.
My father placed coffee in front of me.
“You’re not going back to him.”
It wasn’t a question.
“No.”
My mother sat beside me.
“You loved him.”
“I loved who I thought he was.”
That sentence hurt more than the bruise forming across my cheek.
My phone had hundreds of missed calls.
Most were from unknown numbers.
Some were reporters.
Some were people calling me a monster.
Callan had not contacted me.
Then one message appeared.
It came from a number I recognized.
Nathan Vale.
He was the technician who had installed Melissa’s security system two years earlier.
We had met once during a Christmas dinner.
The message contained six words.
DON’T TRUST THE HOUSE SERVER.
I immediately showed Evelyn.
She called him.
Nathan answered on the second ring.
“I heard what happened.”
Evelyn placed him on speaker.
“What do you know about the cameras?”
Nathan hesitated.
“Melissa wanted local storage because she didn’t trust cloud companies.”
My hope collapsed.
Then he continued.
“But the manufacturer required temporary encrypted cloud synchronization for system diagnostics.”
Evelyn leaned forward.
“For how long?”
“Usually seventy-two hours.”
I stopped breathing.
“Would deleted footage still exist?”
“Possibly.”
“Depends how it was deleted.”
Evelyn stood.
“Do not access anything yourself.”
“We need legal preservation.”
“I know.”
Nathan lowered his voice.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Someone logged into the Harrington system at two fourteen yesterday afternoon.”
That was less than an hour after Callan was injured.
“From where?”
“The master-bedroom control panel.”
Melissa’s bedroom.
My hands became cold.
“Can you see what they did?”
“No.”
“But administrative logs should.”
Evelyn immediately contacted Detective Moreno.
Within an hour, police sent an emergency preservation demand to the security company.
Melissa’s attorney objected.
He claimed the system contained private family material unrelated to the investigation.
That argument only made Detective Moreno more interested.
By evening, the company confirmed something crucial.
A cloud synchronization package existed.
It had not yet been overwritten.
The police would need additional legal authority to obtain the full contents.
Evelyn smiled for the first time all day.
“Melissa tried to delete evidence.”
“Now there may be a record showing she deleted evidence.”
I looked down at the wedding ring still on my finger.
It suddenly felt heavy.
I removed it.
Then my phone buzzed again.
This time the message came from Callan.
Only four words appeared.
Why did you lie?
I stared at them.
Then another message arrived.
Mom told me everything.
May you like
And that was when I understood something terrifying.
Even from a hospital bed, after striking me in front of fifteen people, Callan still believed his mother before he believed me.
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