Chapter 2 - THE CAMERA NEVER BLINKS
Olivia's hands shook so badly she nearly dropped her phone connecting it to the TV.
“Olivia, what are you doing?” Vanessa asked.
The softness had vanished from her voice.
Olivia didn't answer.
Clara remained beside the staircase, one palm against her burning cheek. She looked at Adrian only once, and what he saw in her eyes made his stomach drop. There was no anger there yet.
Only disbelief.
The television flickered.
A security-camera feed filled the screen.
Timestamp: 5:42 p.m.
The camera faced the foyer from above the bookcase.
Vanessa appeared first.
She walked into frame holding a wineglass. Emma slept in her stroller near the living-room archway. Clara's voice could be heard faintly from the kitchen, talking to someone on the phone.
Adrian stopped breathing.
On-screen, Vanessa looked toward the kitchen.
Then toward the staircase.
Then she placed her wineglass on the console table.
“No,” Vanessa whispered.
Olivia turned the volume up.
Vanessa stepped behind the stroller.
She wrapped one hand around the handle.
And pushed.
Not hard. Not wildly.
Deliberately.
The stroller rolled across the polished floor toward the stairs.
Emma woke and cried.
A second later Clara came running from the kitchen.
“Oh my God!” video-Clara screamed.
She threw herself across the floor, caught the stroller handle inches before the front wheels tipped over the first step, and crashed onto her knees.
Emma screamed.
Vanessa rushed into frame after the fact, dropping beside them and pretending to help.
Then the footage captured something worse.
Vanessa leaned close to Clara and whispered, “Nobody is going to believe you.”
The room around Adrian seemed to tilt.
He slowly looked at his sister.
Vanessa backed away.
“It's edited.”
Olivia laughed once, but there was no humor in it. “I downloaded it from the home system thirty seconds ago.”
“Olivia, you don't understand.”
“I understand exactly what I watched.”
Adrian looked down at Emma. His baby had stopped screaming and was hiccupping against his chest.
Then he looked at Clara.
Her cheek was red where his hand had struck her.
He had believed the wrong person.
Worse, he had punished the woman who had just risked herself to save his child.
“Clara…”
“Don't.”
Her voice was barely above a whisper.
Adrian took a step toward her.
She stepped back.
That movement hurt worse than anything she could have said.
Vanessa suddenly moved toward the front door.
Olivia saw it first.
“Dad!”
Adrian turned.
May you like
Vanessa grabbed her purse from the entry table.
And ran.
