She stood frozen as the shadowy figure darted toward the far end of the property and then vanished behind a line of tall hedges near the boundary wall, with Akash following close behind.
A few minutes later, Akash emerged from the darkness, walking back across the lawn with the security guard beside him. Relief flooded her instantly. He was talking to the guard, but even from the distance, she could see the tension in his shoulders.
She hurried toward him. “Where did he go? Did you see who it was?”
“No. He just disappeared.”
He turned toward the security cabin near the front gate. The second security guard on duty stood up immediately as they entered.
“I don’t know how he entered the house, sir,” the second guard said quickly, clearly shaken. “I was at the front gate the whole time.”
Akash ran a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly. “I may have left the main door open. The question is, how did he get onto the property? Show me the security footage from the last half hour.”
The guard nodded and turned to the small bank of monitors mounted against the wall. Muted, low-light feeds flickered across the screens—the front gate, the side boundary wall, the driveway, the garden, the rear hedges, some areas inside the ground floor of the house. He rewound the footage.
They watched in tense silence as the timestamp rolled backward. There was nothing. Just empty lawns, trees swaying in the night breeze. From every camera angle, it looked the same.
“There,” Akash said sharply as he pointed at one of the screens. “Stop. What’s that, on the wall behind the tree?”
The frame froze. On the monitor covering the boundary near the old neem tree, a shadow appeared above the wall. For a second, all they could see was a pair of hands gripping one of the thick branches that extended inward over the property. Then a leg swung into view. A man was slowly climbing down, his face obscured by a cap.
His movements weren’t quick, but they were steady, as if he knew what he was doing. As if he had done this before.
He descended and dropped onto the grass. Rising, he looked around, scanning the lawns. Then he began walking toward the house, keeping close to the boundary wall. Spotting the main door open, he snuck inside. The guard changed the footage to inside the living room, and there he was, standing just inside the doorway. This time they could see him more clearly, but not clearly enough. The man wore a dark cap pulled low over his head, the brim casting a shadow across most of his face.
He began walking slowly around the living room, looking left and right. Then something shifted in his posture. His shouldersstiffened. He grabbed the tall lamp and shoved it hard. It crashed to the floor. The sudden violence made Shauna flinch.
“What is he doing?” she asked as they watched him knock down the dining chair.
“It feels like he’s… angry?” Akash shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
The man turned abruptly toward the corridor that led to the sunroom, his cap still obscuring most of his features, and disappeared from the camera’s frame.
The footage ended there.
Shauna turned to him. “Where’s the rest of the footage?”
Akash’s jaw tightened. “I was supposed to install cameras inside the sunroom and on the trees outside.” He exhaled slowly. “With everything that’s been happening recently, I forgot.” He faced the security guard. “Show me whatever footage we have from outside.”
The guard tapped a few buttons, and they watched as the man burst onto the lawns, running now. Akash appeared seconds after him in pursuit, the security guard following him. There was a brief pause where the man turned fully toward the camera before he ran toward the neem tree. Reaching it, he grabbed the inward-leaning branch and climbed with surprising speed. He hauled himself up, balanced briefly along the thick limb that stretched over the wall, and disappeared the way he had come.
“That was… strange,” Shauna said.
Akash didn’t respond.
She turned toward him. The color had drained from his face. He pointed at the screen, his hand shaking. “Rewind a few seconds back, to where he’s looking into the camera.”
The guard did as told.
“There,” Akash said, pointing at the image on the screen. “Fuck.”
“What?” Shauna asked. “Who is it? Do you know him?”
Akash didn’t reply. He was still staring at the screen, his jaw tight, his posture rigid. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.
She reached for his arm. “Akash, what’s wrong?”
“It can’t be…” he muttered. He swallowed. “That looks like my… my father.”
