Chapter 5: What the Doorbell Saw
Daniel's office smelled like leather and coffee gone cold. He didn't ask permission before he opened his laptop on the desk. Victoria stood in the doorway with her arms crossed, Milo tucked behind her leg like he wasn't sure which adult he was supposed to stand near.
"I pay for the cloud storage for a reason," Daniel said. His voice was flat. He typed his password and the screen filled with little camera tiles. Front Door, Kitchen, Garage, Playroom. All of them had a green dot except Kitchen, which said Offline.
Victoria glanced at it and didn't blink. "The kitchen one always glitches. You know that."
Daniel clicked Front Door first. The timestamp in the corner read 04:12 PM.
I saw myself from above, distorted by the fisheye. Navy jumpsuit. Yellow glove still on my left hand. Pulling the worn brown suitcase behind me, the wheels catching on the brick seam. I walked slow, not running. My shoulders were up and I didn't look back.
Then the front door burst open behind me. Two small figures in light shirts shot out. Lucas first, then Milo a second later, both barefoot on the brick. Lucas caught the back of my jumpsuit.
Daniel stopped the playback. He rewound ten seconds and played it again with the sound on. You could hear Lucas, high and broken. "Miss Emily, wait! Miss Emily, don't leave us, please!" Exactly how he'd said it on the street. No one had told him to run. No one was chasing him except his own panic.
Victoria let out a breath. "See? They're upset because you left. That's not proof of anything."
Daniel didn't answer. He clicked the Kitchen tile and opened the history log. A thin gray bar ran across the morning. Then at 09:12 AM, the feed went black. Offline.
He turned the laptop so Victoria could see. "It doesn't glitch at exactly nine twelve and stay offline for six hours."
"I unplugged it," she said quickly. Too quickly. "The contractor was coming to look at the backsplash. I didn't want him on camera in our house. It's a privacy thing."
"What contractor?" Daniel asked.
She hesitated for half a second. "The tile guy. From Home Depot."
Daniel looked at me. I kept my hands still on the arm of the chair. I didn't correct her. I didn't need to.
He clicked Garage next. The angle showed the laundry room door from inside the garage, and the stacked washer and dryer beyond it. The timestamp read 10:04 AM.
Victoria walked into frame holding a small silver key. Lucas and Milo were already inside the laundry room, I could see Milo's torn sleeve through the gap in the door. She pulled the door shut. There was a click. She turned the key, tested the handle once, and slipped the key into the front pocket of her white pants. Then she walked out of frame.
The laundry room had no windows. No toys. Just detergent on a high shelf and the warm dryer venting.
Victoria's face had gone very still. "For safety," she said. Her voice was even, practiced. "There were contractors in the house. I didn't want the boys underfoot while strangers were here with tools. I locked the laundry room so they would be safe and I could keep an eye on them."
Daniel stared at the frozen image of her hand in her pocket. "What did you tell them was the reason they had to stay hidden?"
"Stay hidden? I didn't say that."
Lucas made a small sound behind her. He was pressed against my side now, his forehead against the yellow glove I still wore. He didn't look at his dad. He whispered, "She said we had to stay hidden or she'd send us away forever."
Victoria laughed, a short, sharp sound. "He's five, Daniel. He doesn't understand context."
Daniel closed the laptop halfway. The room was quiet except for the hum of the air conditioning and Lucas breathing against my sleeve. Milo hadn't moved from the doorway. He kept looking at Victoria's pocket, even though the key wasn't there anymore.
"There were no contractors today," Daniel said. "I checked the calendar. I checked the gate log. No one came through the gate between eight and four except Emily leaving and me coming home."
Victoria's mouth tightened. "You're checking the gate log on me now?"
"I'm checking it because my sons were locked in a room and my kitchen camera was unplugged," he said. He wasn't yelling. That made it worse. "And the doorbell shows Emily didn't take anything when she left. She was carrying one suitcase. Her own."
Victoria didn't have an answer for that. She folded her arms tighter.
Daniel looked at me then, really looked at me, and I saw the apology in his eyes before he said it. "Emily, I need you to stay tonight. In the guest room. The boys shouldn't be alone after this and I don't want them out of your sight."
I felt Lucas's fingers tighten around the rubber of my glove. I nodded once. "Okay."
Victoria's head snapped toward him. "She's still living here? After accusing me of lying?"
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"You're both still living here," Daniel said. "Until I figure out what's true. No one is leaving this house tonight."
He left the laptop open on the desk, the frozen garage frame still glowing on the screen, the silver key caught mid-pocket.
