Chapter 3: Rain Against The Window, Silence Around The Device
The rain had thickened against the study windows by the time I let my hand fall from the clock’s carved frame. I kept my face still for Emma’s sake, though the sight inside the open panel had changed the room around me. The device was smaller than my palm, matte black, and fixed to the inner wood with a strip of double-sided tape. A green light blinked at a measured pace. It did not flicker like a dying indicator. It waited, watched, and returned to darkness before lighting again.
Emma stood beside the desk with her stuffed rabbit pressed to her chest. She watched my fingers, not the device. I understood then that my first responsibility was not to satisfy my suspicion. It was to keep her from becoming part of whatever had been placed inside the clock.
I closed the panel without touching the object. The hidden brass latch settled into place with a soft click. I marked its position in my mind, then stepped back. The clock looked exactly as it had for twenty-two years: ornate walnut, hand-carved details, a polished face catching the gray light from the window. Nothing in its appearance warned that it might be listening.
I moved the leather chair away from the wall and placed it across the study entrance. It was not a lock, but it created a visible boundary. I set the document I had been signing facedown on the desk, leaving the pen where it had stopped. Then I took Emma’s hand and guided her toward the reading sofa, away from the clock.
She did not ask what I had seen. Her quiet was more unsettling than a question. The rabbit’s worn ear rested beneath her chin, and its fabric was darkened where she had held it too tightly. I crouched in front of her and checked her face, her hands, and the doorway. She had not touched the device. She had only seen someone open the clock and put something inside. That distinction mattered.
I returned to the wall and examined the frame without opening it again. The tape held firmly. The green light remained visible only from the angle I had found, through a narrow gap near the inner mechanism. If I removed the device, I might stop an active transmission—or destroy the position, the attachment, and the only clear proof of how it had been hidden. If I left it, whoever had placed it might still be receiving something from the study.
The unfinished document lay beside the pen. I did not know whether the clock had been positioned to hear business discussions, private conversations, or both. The study was where I handled decisions that could affect Moretti Holdings, but it was also where I had allowed Isabella access to the most unguarded parts of my life. The device did not tell me which target mattered. It only proved that someone had chosen this room.
I took out my phone, then stopped before unlocking it. Calling anyone from the study could expose the very information I was trying to protect. I walked to the adjoining hall instead, keeping the door open and my voice unused. From there, I could see Emma and the clock at once. I sent no message. I made no call. I needed a record made outside the room, not another conversation inside it.
At the threshold, I placed a small brass wastebasket on its side beneath the chair. It was an inelegant warning, but anyone entering would have to move it or step over it. I also turned the desk lamp toward the clock, not to illuminate the device through the wood, but to make any disturbance easier to notice. The study became a sealed arrangement of ordinary objects: chair, basket, lamp, clock, document. Each one now had a purpose.
Emma shifted on the sofa. Her rabbit slipped toward the floor, and she caught it before it fell. I looked toward the clock again. The green light continued its slow cycle behind the walnut panel.
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From deeper in the estate came the muted vibration of the service bell, followed by footsteps in the corridor. A moment later, my phone lit on the desk with an incoming call from Moretti Holdings.
I watched it ring beside the unfinished document while someone approached the study door.
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