Chapter 2 - The Camera Before Mine
Rachel had never installed the first camera.
She had installed the second.
Susan explained from her car as Rachel waited with Ethan for medical evaluation.
Three years earlier, Susan had placed a tiny motion camera in the laundry room.
Not to watch Ethan.
To watch Frank.
“Why?”
Susan hesitated.
Rachel nearly screamed.
“Why were you watching your husband?”
“Money was disappearing.”
Cash.
Jewelry.
Documents.
Nothing large enough to prove.
Frank always had an explanation.
Susan began questioning herself.
So she installed a camera.
For eleven days, nothing happened.
On day twelve, Frank discovered it.
He removed the memory card.
Susan confronted him.
He claimed he had smashed it.
She believed him.
Then why had she warned Rachel today?
Because two hours earlier, Susan received an email.
No sender name.
One attachment.
A still image from that old camera.
Frank standing in Rachel’s laundry room.
Three years ago.
But Rachel had not lived in this house three years ago.
The property belonged to her late father, David Mercer.
Rachel inherited it after his death eighteen months earlier.
Before that, the house had sat mostly empty.
“What was Frank doing here?”
“I don't know.”
The photograph showed him opening the cabinet beneath the laundry sink.
Date:
April 14, 2023.
Rachel remembered that date.
Her father had been alive.
He was in rehabilitation after a stroke.
Frank had told everyone he was visiting a friend in Chicago.
He lied.
Then another fact surfaced.
David never trusted Frank.
Rachel had always assumed ordinary stepfather tension.
Apparently not.
David had once accused Frank of taking financial papers from Susan.
No proof.
Family argument.
Buried.
Then Ethan was medically cleared.
His surgical site needed attention, but he was stable.
Rachel nearly collapsed with relief.
The doctor documented everything.
Ethan spoke privately with appropriate professionals.
Rachel did not interrogate him.
That mattered.
He had already spent too much time around adults deciding what he should say.
Then police preserved the current camera system.
Frank had not managed to touch it.
The previous forty-eight hours were available.
Rachel expected to see what happened that afternoon.
She did.
It was enough.
Frank could no longer minimize it.
But another clip mattered more.
2:13 a.m.
The previous night.
Frank entered the laundry room alone.
He moved the dryer away from the wall.
Removed something from behind the baseboard.
A small metal case.
Rachel stared at the screen.
“What is that?”
No one knew.
Frank carried it out.
Where?
The hallway camera showed him walking toward the garage.
Then nothing.
Police searched his car with proper authorization later.
No metal case.
Frank had moved it.
Then Rachel noticed the date.
He retrieved the case hours before Ethan’s surgery.
Coincidence?
Maybe.
She refused to manufacture a conspiracy around her son’s medical procedure without evidence.
Then Susan arrived.
The moment she saw the footage, she sat down.
“I've seen that box.”
“When?”
“Your father’s funeral.”
Frank had been inside David’s study after everyone left.
Susan caught him holding a similar metal case.
He claimed it contained David’s military medals.
Susan believed him.
Rachel stared.
“My father wasn't in the military.”
Susan closed her eyes.
“I know.”
“Then why didn't you say anything?”
“I did.”
“To whom?”
“Frank.”
Of course.
Another private confrontation.
Another secret kept inside the family.
Rachel was furious.
Then Susan said:
“Your father left you something.”
“What?”
“A letter.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
David had called Susan shortly before his stroke.
He said if anything happened to him, Rachel should look “behind the machine that never stops.”
Susan assumed he meant his workshop equipment.
Now she understood.
The washing machine.
Rachel returned to the laundry room only after investigators released the area.
The dryer had been moved.
The baseboard was loose.
Behind it:
Nothing.
Frank had taken the metal case.
But farther inside the wall, Rachel found something he had missed.
A memory card.
Wrapped in plastic.
May you like
On it, in her father’s handwriting:
RACHEL — WATCH FRANK FIRST.
