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I’m normally not so growly, but Wren enjoyed the news of this latest job too much for me to tone down my irritation.
“I didn’t sleep at all last night.” And the three cups of coffee I’ve had don’t seem to be touching the exhaustion either.
“She keep you up all night?” Suggestion is evident in his tone.
I ignore it because it’s hitting a little too close to home. God, the way I imagined her with her—
Nope.
I shake my head to clear it of that line of thought.
“I don’t know if I need more cameras right now. What I need you to do is research Charles Blair.”
“I researched him, just like I do all potential clients. He’s clean.”
“Do it again.”
“Are you implying that I didn’t do my job?”
There’s an ounce of the aggravation I feel in his voice.
“I’m saying there’s something going on around here that makes my skin crawl.”
“Celebrities are eccentric people, and it’s not actually that odd if they have weird collections of certain things. Dead bugs in jars aren’t—”
“Would you listen?” I huff. “I’m not talking about weird stuff, but maybe I am. There are ten cameras inside the house.”
His typing comes through the line. “And twelve on the exterior.”
“You’re in their system?”
“And you’re in sweats.”
I flip off the camera in the corner of the security room, knowing he’s now watching me.
“Two on the front entrance. Two on the back entrance. One in the kitchen. The security office.” He pauses, discovering what’s been causing me concern since yesterday. “Four around the pool?”
“She swims in only the bottoms of her bathing suit,” I inform him. “According to the logs I have access to, Blair accesses the camera system more than once a day.”
“Not the pool.”
“Excuse me?”
“He doesn’t access the pool cameras. They can’t be accessed remotely, only from inside the security office.”
“Yet you’re looking at them?”
“Charles Blair isn’t me, and this isn’t the most sophisticated system.”
“He’s not watching her swim naked?”
“Let me verify.”
The clicking of his keyboard makes my already sore head throb even more, but my blood pressure seems to be leveling out with what he’s telling me. Am I so jaded that I automatically think the man who hired me is a pervert? Possibly, but I’ve seen too much in my life to give anyone the immediate benefit of the doubt.
“He accesses the kitchen once a day, but mostly he’s scanning the outside views.”
“More than once a day?”
“It appears he checks in the morning, then texts the groundskeeper if he finds issues with his yard.” He huffs a humorless laugh. “This morning the roses on the east side of the property were looking a little dry.”
“He’s not watching her like a pervert?”
“Not that I can tell. Unless she runs from the front door to the back door or outside naked, there isn’t much to see.”
I breathe a sigh of relief when I realize we weren’t within camera range yesterday when she sauntered in with her top off.
“She doesn’t really swim though. She just takes a dip in the pool every once in a while.”
“The fuck are you doing? You’re watching her?”
“Verifying access. I have to access each camera to see if there are any other programs running to an outside source that was missed on the initial sweep.”
“So instead of looking at the live feed, you’re going back to when she was in the pool?”
“Dude, she’s in the pool now. I mean, she’s not in the pool anymore, she just got out. She’s also wearing a full bathing suit, if you were wondering.”
I wasn’t, but I’ve refused to have the pool cameras up on the monitors in the office, knowing it would be just as much of a violation for me to watch that as it would be if her stepfather was watching.
“I thought she was still asleep.” I’d assumed she’d sleep half the day away after staying out so late last night, but apparently not.
“You seem flustered.”
“Are you still watching her? If you are, that’s creepy and against the law.”
“Accessing the Blair’s system is against the law, but you wanted me to do it.”
“I wanted you to see if her stepdad was a pervert.”
I learned long ago that victims of sexual assault act out, and before Wren confirmed that Charles Blair is more concerned about what people see from the outside of his home is more important than what is going on inside, I was certain he had hurt her in some way.
“I don’t think he’s perfect by any measure, but I can’t find anything that suggests he’s creeping on his stepdaughter.”
“That’s a relief. Still doesn’t explain four cameras in the pool area.”
“The system has been updated, but from the looks of it, it’s been in place for like fifteen years. Oh shit. That may be why.”
“What?”
Silence fills the line.
“What, Wren?”
“His son drowned in that pool before he met Remington’s mother.”
