Chapter 10 - The Camera Above the Kitchen Door
The camera rotated until its lens centered on Mom.
Luke dragged the kitchen chair beneath it and climbed up.
“Don’t touch it,” I said.
He stopped.
“If it’s streaming, whoever’s watching will know we found it.”
“They already know,” he replied.
The red light blinked twice.
Then went dark.
Someone had shut it off remotely.
Luke pulled the device from the ceiling anyway. Two wires ran into the wall, along with an Ethernet cable.
“This isn’t a cheap home camera,” he said.
I examined the casing.
No brand name. No serial number.
A small memory slot sat beneath the base.
Empty.
“The footage is stored somewhere else,” I said.
Mom lowered herself into a kitchen chair.
“Raymond watches from the den.”
“Only Raymond?”
She shook her head.
“Sometimes he talks to the woman.”
“Eleanor?”
“I never saw her face. I heard her through the speaker.”
Luke inserted the memory card from his phone into an adapter attached to my old laptop, which he had hidden beneath the truck seat.
The audio file opened.
We listened to Martin push Mom.
We heard Raymond mention making the injuries match a report.
Then Eleanor’s voice filled the kitchen.
“She cannot leave the house until Claire signs.”
Luke paused the file.
“Signs what?”
Mom looked at me.
“Your father’s company.”
My father had owned Bennett Restoration, a small but respected construction firm specializing in historic houses. After his death, the company had been sold.
At least, that was what I had been told.
Mom rubbed her wrists.
“Thomas put your name in the trust.”
“What trust?”
“The company was never sold. Raymond moved it.”
“Moved it where?”
“I don’t know. He made me sign pages when I was sleepy.”
Luke searched the guardianship documents.
A clause near the back referred to Bennett Heritage Holdings.
The company listed one remaining beneficiary.
Claire Bennett.
My name.
“Why would they need my signature now?” I asked.
Luke scrolled farther.
The trust could not be dissolved or sold without consent from the surviving beneficiary.
Me.
Raymond had controlled Mom, seized the house, and forged guardianship papers.
But he still needed my signature to reach whatever remained inside my father’s company.
The reason he wanted me back was no longer a mystery.
The question was how much he was willing to do to make me sign.
A loud knock struck the front door.
“Police,” a man called. “Open the door.”
Luke closed the laptop.
Mom panicked.
“Raymond called them.”
“Let me talk,” I said.
Another knock.
“Claire Bennett, we need you to step outside.”
They knew my name.
I opened the door only as far as the chain allowed.
Two uniformed officers stood on the porch. Behind them, Raymond leaned against his car with one hand pressed to his forehead.
A thin line of blood ran through his silver hair.
“He did that himself,” Luke said behind me.
Raymond lifted his face toward the officers.
“She attacked me,” he called. “Then she abducted my wife.”
One officer looked through the gap and saw Mom’s bloodied temple.
“Ma’am, are you being held here against your will?”
Mom opened her mouth.
Raymond stared at her from beyond the officers.
Her voice disappeared.
The second officer held up a printed emergency order.
“Raymond Hale is Margaret Hale’s legal guardian. We have instructions to return her to his custody.”
I looked at the county seal.
The order had been issued twenty minutes earlier.
Far too quickly for a judge to review anything.
At the bottom was an electronic signature.
Judge Caroline West.
Luke leaned close.
“Caroline West retired last month.”
Before I could say it, the back window shattered.
Someone reached through the broken glass, grabbed the laptop from the table, and pulled it outside.
May you like
The memory card disappeared with it.
📖 Find out who stole the laptop while police stood at the front door—and why the false emergency order forced Claire to make a devastating choice in CHAPTER 11. 👇
