Chapter 3 - The Locked Music Room
Clara didn't panic.
That frightened me more than anything.
On Camera 19, she calmly closed the refrigerator and walked toward Aurelia's cello cabinet.
She ran her fingers across the wood, then looked around the room.
Searching.
For what?
I watched from my study while Marcus stood behind me.
"She's looking for something," he said.
"I know."
"Question is whether she's looking for evidence or trying to remove it."
Clara approached Aurelia's desk.
She opened one drawer.
Then another.
The third was locked.
She pulled harder.
Nothing.
Then she removed a hairpin.
My pulse jumped.
"She knows that drawer."
Marcus leaned toward the monitor.
"Apparently."
The lock opened.
Clara reached inside.
Empty.
Her face changed.
For the first time, fear appeared.
She searched the drawer again.
Then underneath it.
Then behind the desk.
Finally, she whispered, "Where did you put it?"
Aurelia.
She was talking to my dead wife.
I had never opened that drawer.
After Aurelia died, I couldn't bring myself to disturb her music room. Her sheet music remained exactly where she'd left it. Her favorite cello still rested inside its case. Even the pencil beside her metronome remained untouched.
But apparently someone else had been searching the room.
When Clara left, I went upstairs.
Lina stayed with the twins while Marcus and I entered the music room.
The locked drawer was empty.
But beneath the desk, Marcus noticed scratches on the floor.
We moved it.
Behind the desk was a narrow ventilation panel.
One screw was loose.
Inside we found a black velvet pouch.
My hands trembled as I opened it.
A flash drive.
A key.
And a folded note.
Damian,
If you find this, something has happened that I was afraid to say aloud.
Do not trust anyone simply because they are family.
Aurelia.
I had to sit down.
Marcus took the flash drive.
"It's encrypted."
"Can you open it?"
"I know someone."
Within two hours, my cybersecurity team recovered the files.
There were photographs.
Financial statements.
Medical invoices.
Emails.
And one audio recording.
Aurelia's voice filled the study.
"August seventeenth. I don't know whether I'm being paranoid, but Clara keeps asking about the boys' trust. Yesterday she asked what happens if one baby doesn't survive delivery. I told her never to ask me that again."
My chest tightened.
The recording continued.
"She apologized. But today I found one of my prescription bottles in her bathroom."
Marcus and I exchanged a look.
Aurelia had known.
Not everything.
But enough to be afraid.
Another recording.
"August twentieth. Clara says Damian works too much and that I'll be alone after the babies come. She keeps suggesting I change the trust so she can manage money for the boys if something happens to us. I told her no."
Then the final recording.
Aurelia sounded tired.
"I've made an appointment with Marcus. I'm removing Clara from every emergency authority connected to my children."
Marcus closed his eyes.
"That's the call."
Six days before the birth.
The appointment Aurelia never reached.
The files also contained bank records showing Clara was drowning in debt.
Millions.
Failed investments.
Luxury properties leveraged twice.
Private loans.
A lifestyle built on money she no longer had.
But one document stood apart.
A transfer authorization.
Forty million dollars.
From Aurelia's family trust.
The signature looked like Aurelia's.
Except Aurelia had marked the document with two words.
NOT MINE.
Forgery.
This wasn't jealousy.
It wasn't grief.
It was money.
Clara had apparently been stealing from the trust before Aurelia died.
The twins' birth threatened to expose everything because control of Aurelia's assets would move to independent trustees.
Including me.
Then Marcus found another file.
A photograph of a handwritten note.
The original wasn't in the pouch.
The message read:
If anything happens to me during delivery, check Clara's safe-deposit box.
Below it was a bank name.
And a key number.
I looked at the key in my hand.
Marcus whispered, "That's tomorrow."
"What?"
"The bank opens at nine."
I shook my head.
"No."
"We need law enforcement."
"Not until the boys are safe."
I called my security chief.
No one would enter or leave the property without my knowledge.
But at 6:40 that evening, Camera 4 showed Clara standing beside the front door with a suitcase.
She was leaving.
I walked downstairs.
"Going somewhere?"
She froze.
Then smiled.
"Just a few days away. I think everyone needs space."
"Interesting timing."
Her smile weakened.
"Meaning?"
"Nothing."
I looked at the suitcase.
"Stay tonight."
"Why?"
"Family dinner."
She studied my face.
For one terrible second, I thought she knew.
Then Samuel cried upstairs.
Clara glanced toward the sound.
"Of course."
She left her suitcase beside the stairs.
At dinner, nobody spoke much.
Lina remained upstairs.
Marcus had gone home.
Clara drank wine.
I drank water.
Finally she said, "Did you fire Lina?"
"Tomorrow."
"Good."
"You really don't trust her."
"No."
"Why?"
"Because people who need money do dangerous things."
The irony was almost unbearable.
Then she smiled.
"You understand that better than anyone."
At 10:30, Clara went upstairs.
At 11:15, I checked every camera.
At midnight, the house was quiet.
At 1:47, Camera 8 detected movement.
Clara.
But she wasn't going toward the nursery.
She walked downstairs.
Into my study.
She opened my desk.
Then she walked directly toward the wall safe.
I watched her enter a code.
My code.
The safe opened.
She knew it.
Inside was the velvet pouch.
I had intentionally left it there.
Empty.
Clara grabbed it.
Opened it.
Nothing.
Her face drained of color.
Then she looked directly at the hidden camera.
Not approximately toward it.
Directly at it.
And smiled.
My heart stopped.
She reached upward.
Camera 8 went black.
Then Camera 7.
Camera 12.
Camera 15.
One by one, the feeds disappeared.
Someone was disabling my security system.
Then my phone rang.
Lina.
Her voice was barely a whisper.
"Damian."
"What?"
"Someone just locked the nursery door from the outside."
I ran.
May you like
Halfway upstairs, every light in the mansion went out.
And somewhere in the darkness, one of my newborn sons began screaming.
