Chapter 5 - The Hidden Camera
The next morning, the gray light of dawn filtered through the heavy velvet drapes of the master wing. I woke up on the sofa in the sitting room, a cashmere blanket draped over my shoulders that hadn't been there when I closed my eyes.
Lily was still sleeping soundly in the bedroom. I quietly slipped out into the hallway, where Vincenzo was standing guard with two heavily armed men.
“Morning, Clara,” Vincenzo grunted, his demeanor still frosty and suspicious. “Boss is in the private monitoring room on the third floor. He wants you there.”
The third floor of the mansion was off-limits to almost everyone. It housed Dominic’s primary communications and surveillance hub—a high-tech command center filled with rows of glowing monitors displaying live feeds from every corner of the Westchester estate, the perimeter fences, and the surrounding woods.
When I pushed open the heavy steel door, Dominic was standing before a massive wall of screens, holding a cup of black coffee. He looked like he hadn't slept at all; dark circles shadowed his eyes, but his focus was razor-sharp.
“Look at this feed,” Dominic said without turning around, pointing to a monitor displaying the footage from the service corridor leading to the cold room.
I stepped up beside him, watching the black-and-white playback from the night before, exactly twelve minutes before the party started. The screen showed the timestamp: 6:48 PM.
For a long time, the hallway was completely empty. Then, a shadow flickered near the air vent. A figure dressed in standard catering staff attire—black trousers, white shirt, and a black vest—stepped out from the blind spot of the camera.
“Freeze it there,” Dominic commanded into a desk microphone.
The image locked. The figure was wearing a black baseball cap pulled low, obscuring their face, but as they raised their hand to insert the signal jammer into the vent, their sleeve rolled back slightly, revealing a distinct, jagged scar looping around their left wrist.
My breath hitched. I knew that scar.
“Do you recognize it?” Dominic asked, watching my reflection in the glass monitors.
“Yes,” I whispered, my voice shaking. “That’s Thomas. One of the senior catering coordinators.”
Dominic’s jaw clenched so hard muscle twitched in his cheek. “Where is Thomas now?”
“He wasn't on the staff roster for yesterday evening,” Vincenzo chimed in, stepping into the room with a tablet. “He called in sick around midday, claiming food poisoning. But our security logs show his keycard was scanned at the service gate at 6:15 PM.”
“He smuggled himself in,” Dominic said coldly.
“And he’s still on the grounds,” I added, my mind racing through the property layout. “If he called in sick, he probably never left. He’s hiding in the old greenhouse or the gardener's shed near the western lake.”
Dominic turned away from the monitors, grabbing his leather holster from the desk and strapping a heavy Beretta pistol beneath his arm.
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“Vincenzo, take a tactical team to the western lake,” Dominic ordered, his voice ringing with absolute authority. “Turn every stone, tear down the greenhouse if you have to. Bring Thomas to me alive.”
He paused, then looked directly at me. “And Clara? Stay in the master wing. It’s not over yet.”
