Chapter 5: The Camera That Could Not Answer Yet
The green light beneath the nursery camera stayed on.
It was a small, steady point above the locked door, too ordinary to match the room around it. Rain struck the windows hard enough to blur the city beyond the glass. Leo breathed against my shoulder, each breath shallow but more even than before. I kept one hand beneath his neck and watched the camera while Alessio stood between me and the door, his pistol lowered but still in his hand.
Neither of us moved toward the lens.
From where I knelt, I could see only the camera’s dark face and its green indicator. The light proved power, nothing more. It did not prove that the camera was recording. It did not prove that anything had been saved. It did not prove that the device had been aimed correctly during the minutes before Alessio entered.
The room offered no answer.
I shifted Leo slightly and looked at the changing table. The breast-milk storage bag lay sealed beside the forceps. The blue bead rested inside, surrounded by clear plastic. The pacifier clip remained where it had been left, separate from the bag and untouched since I had noticed it. I would not bring them together. A comparison made by hand could smear the black residue, disturb the groove, or place a new mark where none had existed.
Alessio followed my gaze. His expression tightened, but he did not reach for either object.
The pistol made the distance between us impossible to ignore. It was not aimed at me now, yet its presence controlled every decision. His household had the locked doors, the cameras, the medical arrangements, the money to send evidence somewhere quickly or make it disappear into a private explanation. I had my hands, my memory, and a sealed bag that could be taken from me as easily as the gun could be raised again.
Leo stirred against my chest. I checked his color, then his breathing. The immediate improvement had not made him safe. His body was still limp with exhaustion, and the storm kept the outside world at a distance.
I pointed toward the camera without stepping closer. The green light remained unchanged. Alessio looked up at it, then at the closed door. His attention moved between the lens and the evidence as if one might explain the other.
The camera could be preserved, but even touching its controls might alter its state. Opening an application could overwrite a temporary record. Disconnecting power could erase something that had not yet transferred. Moving the device could change its angle. Even standing beneath it might become another disputed detail later.
So we left it alone.
Alessio crossed to the room’s side table and examined the telephone without picking it up. The motion carried the confidence of a man accustomed to immediate access, but he stopped before making a call. I understood the hesitation. Any request for help would bring another person, another set of hands, another account of who had entered the nursery first. The household’s resources could protect Leo, but they could also turn the scene into someone else’s version of events.
I tightened my grip on the sealed bag.
The pressure showed itself in smaller ways. My wet sleeve clung to my arm. My knees ached against the Persian rug. I had no way to leave without passing Alessio, and no way to care for Leo elsewhere without carrying the bead and clip through the house. Employment was not an abstract concern anymore. If he decided I had caused the danger, the locked room could become a place where I was held responsible before anyone examined the evidence.
The camera’s green light continued to watch us without witnessing anything we could use.
Leo’s breathing faltered once. I bent over him, counting the next breaths by feel rather than sound. Alessio remained silent, but his hand closed around the pistol grip. The weapon, the bag, the camera, and the clip formed a chain of custody neither of us knew how to complete alone.
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Outside verification had become necessary—not because the camera had answered, but because it had not.
The locked door stood between us and whoever could examine the nursery without changing it. Beyond that door, the storm filled the house with noise. I kept Leo close, and Alessio finally turned toward the lock, his hand rising as if the next decision would bring someone in.
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