Chapter 1 - Grandma Thought the Camera Was DeadConstance Hale believed the camera couldn't see her.
That was why she stopped pretending.
One-year-old Jonah sat strapped into his high chair in the Dawson family kitchen, his cheeks wet with tears and oatmeal smeared across his lips, chin, and bib.
He turned his head away from the spoon.
Constance followed him with it.
“Eat.”
Jonah cried harder.
His tiny hands pushed helplessly at the tray.
“Eat!”
She forced another spoonful toward his mouth.
Jonah twisted.
The oatmeal landed across his cheek.
Constance's face changed.
“I'm done with this.”
She grabbed his chin.
Jonah screamed.
Then—
SLAP.
The sound was small.
The reaction wasn't.
Jonah's entire face crumpled.
He screamed so loudly that ten-year-old Elodie heard him from upstairs.
She came running.
“GRANDMA!”
Constance looked toward the doorway.
Elodie froze when she saw Jonah holding one hand against his reddened cheek.
“Don't hit him!”
Constance stared at the girl.
Then laughed.
“You two are exactly like your father.”
Elodie's jaw tightened.
“Leave Dad alone.”
“All he ever brought into this family was trouble.”
“He loves us.”
“He left, didn't he?”
Elodie looked away.
That hurt because it was partly true.
Her father, Luke Dawson, hadn't slept in the house for three months.
Her parents told her they were “taking some time.”
Elodie knew adults used phrases like that when they didn't want children to understand what was really happening.
Constance pointed toward Jonah.
“And this one never stops crying.”
“He's a baby!”
“He's spoiled.”
Jonah cried again.
Constance leaned toward him.
“Cry all you want. Nobody's coming.”
Elodie pointed toward the security camera mounted high in the kitchen corner.
“Mom will see you.”
Constance slowly turned toward it.
Then smiled.
“No, she won't.”
Elodie stared.
“The Wi-Fi is down.”
Constance wiped oatmeal from the spoon.
“Your mother can't see anything.”
Something cold moved through Elodie's stomach.
Because Grandma was right.
The camera's tiny status light was dark.
But Elodie knew something Constance didn't.
Two months earlier, the internet had gone out during a storm.
Elodie watched her mother reconnect the camera system through the family tablet.
Maribel had laughed when Elodie asked why she needed to know.
“Because you're the technology department when I'm old.”
Elodie remembered every step.
She looked toward the small tablet on the kitchen counter.
Constance noticed her looking.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Go upstairs.”
Elodie didn't move.
“Now.”
She slowly walked toward the hall.
Constance turned back toward Jonah.
“Finally.”
Elodie stopped just beyond the doorway.
Waited.
Constance began washing the spoon.
Elodie slipped around the other entrance.
The tablet was still on the counter.
She grabbed it.
Home Security.
Network.
Reconnect.
Her finger shook.
She tapped.
RECONNECTING.
Constance turned.
“What are you doing?”
BEEP.
The camera light turned on.
Constance's face changed.
At St. Vincent Medical Center, fourteen miles away, Maribel Dawson was standing beside a patient's bed when her phone vibrated.
HOME CAMERA ONLINE.
She almost ignored it.
Then another alert.
EMERGENCY SOUND DETECTED.
Maribel stepped into the hallway.
Opened the live feed.
At first she saw Elodie holding the tablet.
Then Jonah crying.
Then her mother.
Constance leaned over the high chair.
“Keep crying.”
Maribel's blood went cold.
Constance continued,
“Nobody's coming home to save you.”
Maribel hit the microphone button.
“MOM!”
Constance jumped.
Her head snapped toward the camera.
Maribel's voice exploded from the speaker.
“GET AWAY FROM MY CHILDREN!”
Elodie began crying.
“Mom!”
Constance stared at the camera.
For the first time, fear crossed her face.
Maribel was already moving.
She told the charge nurse there was a family emergency.
Called her neighbor, Mrs. Hanley.
Then called 911.
She stayed connected to the camera as she ran toward the parking garage.
“Ellie, take Jonah out of the chair if you can.”
Constance moved toward the tablet.
Maribel shouted,
“DON'T TOUCH IT!”
Constance stopped.
“You've misunderstood.”
“I watched you.”
“He wouldn't eat.”
“You hit a one-year-old.”
“It wasn't hard.”
Maribel felt something inside her turn to ice.
“That sentence is not helping you.”
Five minutes later Mrs. Hanley entered through the side door.
Constance immediately became another person.
Soft voice.
Tears.
“I've had such a terrible afternoon.”
Elodie screamed,
“She hit Jonah!”
Mrs. Hanley picked him up.
Police arrived eight minutes later.
By the time Maribel reached the house, Constance sat in the living room giving a calm explanation to an officer.
Maribel didn't speak to her.
She went straight to her children.
Jonah clung to her shirt.
Elodie wrapped both arms around her waist.
“I fixed the camera.”
“I know.”
“Grandma thought it was off.”
“I know.”
Maribel kissed the top of her daughter's head.
Then Elodie whispered,
“She turns it off a lot.”
Maribel froze.
“What?”
Elodie looked toward Constance.
“Around the same time.”
“How often?”
“I don't know.”
That night, after police removed Constance from the house and Maribel's children were finally asleep, Maribel opened the router history.
Her hands began shaking.
The kitchen camera hadn't lost its connection only that afternoon.
It had disconnected at almost exactly 3:17 p.m.
Yesterday.
The day before.
Three days earlier.
Five days earlier.
Nine separate times in two weeks.
Always between 3:15 and 3:20.
Always restored roughly forty minutes later.
Maribel stared at the dates.
Then one made her stop breathing.
Tuesday.
Constance had not been at the house Tuesday.
Maribel knew because her mother had spent the entire afternoon at a dental appointment across town.
Maribel turned toward Elodie.
“Sweetheart.”
Elodie looked up from the couch.
“On Tuesday, when Grandma was gone…”
Maribel swallowed.
“Did anyone else come into the house?”
May you like
Elodie's face changed.
And before she answered, Maribel already knew the answer was yes.
Related Stories
