Chapter 2 - The Bedroom Camera
Malcolm did not let the security staff enter the children's wing before he did.
He carried Nia upstairs, Isaiah walking so close their sleeves brushed. In the hallway, the little girl pointed to the guest bathroom.
“Can I wash my hands now?”
“Of course.”
“Miss Simone said I wasn't allowed to touch the nice towels.”
Malcolm opened the linen cupboard and handed her the thickest white towel he could find.
“Every towel in this house is for you.”
She looked at him as though he had offered her the moon.
Their bedrooms were beautiful from the doorway: painted stars on Nia's ceiling, shelves of children's books, a basketball hoop above Isaiah's desk. Up close, the rooms told another story. Nia's dresser had a new combination lock. A plastic bin by the door contained folded clothing labeled APPROVED. Isaiah's closet held two school uniforms and three empty hangers. The winter coats Malcolm bought in November were missing.
“Where's the blue coat?” he asked.
“Simone said it was too expensive for someone who couldn't behave,” Isaiah answered.
Malcolm crouched beside Nia's bed. A tiny black lens peered from the eye of a stuffed reindeer on the shelf, angled toward her pillow.
He did not touch it. He took a photograph and called his attorney, Candace Whitfield, then the police nonemergency line for guidance about preserving evidence. Candace told him not to dismantle the device or let anyone erase the account behind it.
Nia climbed onto the bed.
“Is Rudolph bad?”
“No, baby. Somebody used Rudolph in a bad way.”
She picked at a loose thread on her sleeve. “She said she could tell if we cried.”
Malcolm looked at Isaiah. The boy stared at the floor.
“When did it start?”
“After Aunt Dee's memorial,” Isaiah said.
Their mother, Denise Price, had died in an electrical fire at a Reed Foundation property a year earlier. Malcolm still remembered the smell of rain on the church steps, Nia's tiny hand disappearing into Denise's casket flowers, Isaiah refusing to let anyone see him cry.
“Why didn't you tell me?” Malcolm asked.
“I tried.”
Isaiah took out his phone. It was an old model with a cracked corner. He scrolled through months of texts sent to Malcolm: Can you call when you're alone? Nia didn't get breakfast again. Please come home before Friday.
Beside each one was the same response: We'll talk when I get back. Listen to Simone for now.
Malcolm recognized neither the wording nor the punctuation. He opened his own message history. Those exchanges were missing.
“She had my phone when I was in surgery,” he said quietly.
“And your assistant said you were too busy when I called.”
Malcolm thought of Simone handling his schedule after the shoulder operation in March. She had offered to protect his recovery. He had let her.
The doorbell rang downstairs. Candace had arrived with a local child-welfare specialist named Dr. Renee Walker, whom Malcolm knew through the foundation but had asked to act independently. Renee explained to the children what questions she would ask and that they could take breaks. She did not promise secrets she couldn't keep.
While Nia colored with Renee, Candace and Malcolm inspected a list of household accounts. The camera feed was subscribed to a company called Harmony House Consulting. Simone was listed as the administrator. Five additional cameras covered the children's hallway, the pantry, and the basement recreation room.
“Why the pantry?” Malcolm asked.
Isaiah gave a humorless smile. “That's where the food is.”
Malcolm opened the pantry. The top shelves held expensive snacks for gala guests. The bottom cupboard, where the children's cereal should have been, was padlocked.
At the bottom of Nia's schoolbag Malcolm found a folded kindergarten newsletter. The teacher had written, Nia has stopped joining the music circle and asks whether she is allowed to eat the snack we provide. Please call me. Simone had signed the response line: Family matter. No meeting needed.
Malcolm read the note twice. His niece had always loved music. Denise used to send him videos of Nia singing off-key with a wooden spoon for a microphone. Now the child flinched when a spoon clattered against the sink. He photographed the newsletter for the independent professionals and called the school to arrange a meeting that included Isaiah's concerns. The teacher sounded relieved that someone was calling back.
“I sent three notes,” she said. “The first one disappeared. The second came back blank. I was about to request a conference with you directly.”
“I'm sorry I made you work so hard to reach me.”
“The important thing is that somebody answers now,” she said.
He promised to attend in person. Then he crossed out the first business appointment in his calendar for the next morning and wrote NIA'S TEACHER in letters large enough that no assistant could mistake the priority.
He called Mrs. Pearl Jackson, the longtime housekeeper whom Simone had fired in October.
Mrs. Jackson answered from her daughter's apartment. “Mr. Malcolm?”
“Pearl, why did you leave?”
“I didn't leave. I was dismissed because I gave Nia a grilled cheese when Mrs. Reed said she hadn't earned lunch.”
Malcolm shut his eyes.
“Why didn't you call me?”
“I did. Your office told me you knew.”
He asked her to come to the house the next morning and speak with investigators if she was willing.
Downstairs, Simone was waiting beside the fireplace in the same flawless black dress she had worn in the courtyard. The band had left. The guests were gone. Only a half-filled glass of cider remained on the mantel.
“You're treating me like a stranger,” she said.
Malcolm placed the photograph of the reindeer camera on the coffee table.
“Tell me what this is doing in my house.”
“It's for their safety.”
“In Nia's bedroom?”
“You travel. The girl sleepwalks.”
“She doesn't.”
“She used to.”
“Name the doctor.”
Simone stared at him.
Candace entered carrying a folder. “I have the provider's access log. A user connected to this account downloaded bedroom footage yesterday.”
Simone glanced toward the doors.
“Who?” Malcolm asked.
Candace turned the page. “The login belongs to a person registered as your sister Denise.”
Malcolm felt the room contract.
May you like
Denise had been dead for a year.
Somebody was borrowing her name to watch her children sleep.
