Chapter 3 - The Camera in the Frosting

I pressed my back against the heavy metal door, my heart hammering so hard I thought it would crack my ribs. We’re both going down for murder.
My husband. The man who tucked our daughter in every night. The man who held my hand through three miscarriages before Emma was born. What clinical trials? Mark was an accountant for a logistics firm—or so I thought.
I slipped away before he could catch me, running back to the waiting room and pretending to be asleep when he returned.
The next morning, while Mark went to the hospital cafeteria to get breakfast, I drove back to our empty house. The party balloons were deflated, wrinkling against the living room ceiling. The kitchen was still a crime scene of spilled pink stains and half-eaten cake.
I walked straight to the counter and picked up the plastic unicorn from the top of the cake.
I turned it over. Embedded deep within the hollow plastic body was a micro-camera, wired to a high-capacity transmitter. It wasn't recording to a cloud server; it was transmitting to a local IP address.
My hands shaking, I opened Mark’s study. His laptop was locked, but I knew his password—it was Emma’s birthday.
I logged in, pulled up his network history, and found the receiver software for the hidden camera. But what I found wasn't a live feed of the kitchen. It was a massive database of encrypted folders labeled with dates spanning the last three years.
I opened the most recent folder. It contained hundreds of video clips. Not of Rachel.
May you like
Of me.
Clips of me making dinner. Clips of me taking my daily vitamins. And a folder labeled: "Dosage Adjustment Protocols."