Page 71 of Crimson Heart

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Asteaming cup of coffee in his hand, Francisco left the kitchen. It was still early, and instead of breakfast, he’d opted for an extra shot of caffeine. Everybody had been up early to shore up the estate’s security features. After Steve Leon had managed to sneak onto the estate without anyone seeing him and had assaulted Danielle, Jude had filled all his team members in on what had happened. Everybody had been assigned to add additional security cameras and upgraded procedures to prevent it from happening again. Francisco had been coordinating the installation of additional cameras and testing of all existing ones.

Chase, the tall black werewolf working for the Gallaghers, entered through the front entrance. Francisco tipped his head in Chase’s direction.

“Hey, did you manage to figure out what’s wrong with the third camera angle down near the gate?” Francisco asked.

Chase nodded. “Yeah, the problem was the wire that supplies electricity to it. We need to rewire that one completely.”

“Ah, crap,” he replied.

“I’ll replace the wiring, but we also need another camera. There’s a blind spot in the curve just after the gate.”

“Start on the rewiring, and I’ll follow you once I’ve picked out the equipment we need for the additional angle.”

Chase nodded. “Great. See you in a bit.”

While Chase left the house the same way he’d entered it, Francisco took a large gulp from his coffee cup and headed toward the little security office located beneath the stairs, though it could barely be called an office. It was more like a cupboard stuffed with electronic equipment, a desk with one chair, and two monitors.

Before he reached the door, it already swung open to the outside, and Flora exited. When she saw him, she jerked back, hesitating for a moment, before she pasted a clearly forced smile onto her lips.

“Oh, hi, Francisco.”

He nodded. “Flora. Is there anything you need?”

“I was just looking for Spencer.”

Francisco raised his eyebrows. If she were really looking for Spencer, she would have seen immediately when opening the door to the tiny office that it was empty. There would have been no need to enter and close the door.

“I saw him drive away about half an hour ago,” he said, pretending he didn’t notice that she was nervous.

“Well, that’s a shame. He was supposed to come to Costco with me. He must have forgotten. I suppose I’d better ask Chase.”

“Chase is busy installing more security cameras. He won’t have time.”

“Guess I’ll take Heath instead. Thanks, Francisco.”

Since when did Flora thank anybody for anything? That alone was suspicious. From the moment the Werewolf Alliance had taken over the Gallagher pack, he’d disliked Flora. She was a busybody who put her nose into everything, whether it concerned her or not. She still acted as if she were the matriarch of the pack, when that was Danielle’s role now. Flora seemed to have a hard time letting go of the role she’d previously held in the pack.

When Flora was gone, Francisco entered the security office and closed the door behind him. From the position of the chair, he knew that she’d sat down in it, further underscoring the fact that she hadn’t been looking for her son. She’d sat in front of the computer. But why? What had she done?

He sat down in the chair and moved the mouse. The screen was locked, and he entered the password, which reminded him that Spencer had insisted the security system password remain the same so anyone needing access in an emergency could use the system. Considering that this meant anyone in the family could use the computer, it was anybody’s guess why they even kept it password-protected. He’d have a word with Jude about it later. First, he needed to figure out what Flora had done here.

He navigated to the log that registered the previous actions executed on the system. Several files of security video recordings had been viewed. He was sure that he hadn’t done that. The time stamp coincided with the time that he’d been in the kitchen, which meant that Flora had accessed those recordings.

He tapped on the first one and viewed it. It was a view of the front door of the mansion, which had recorded somebody driving away. He zoomed in: it was Byron who left the property a few days earlier. It was dark, and the time of the recording showed as 7:23 pm. Nothing suspicious about that. He closed the video and tapped on the second one Flora had accessed. To his surprise, the video didn’t open. Instead, a window popped open, saying File missing or moved.

“Damn!”

Had Flora deleted the video? He clicked on the trash icon on the desktop, and a large window opened. He sorted the files so the latest file that had been deleted was listed first. It was a video file. He clicked on it. From the date and time, he noticed that this had been recorded only a couple of minutes before Byron had driven off. What was so important that Flora had to delete the recording?

Francisco clicked on Play and watched. This video was taken from the same angle as the one before. This time, two people were standing just outside the front door: Flora and Byron. They seemed to be in a heated discussion before Owen arrived and exchanged a few words with them, after which Byron hurried to his car.

There was nothing in this video that warranted deletion. Nothing incriminating, nothing that would arouse suspicion. So why had Flora gone through the trouble of looking for this particular recording and then deleted it?

He played the same recording again, when he noticed that the sound on it was set to mute. He put on his headphones, unmuted the recording, and listened. The voices were faint, and there was a lot of interference. He adjusted the audio controls to eliminate all sounds but the voices. Then he clicked on the video again. While the voices were low because of the distance between the microphone and the two people talking, he had no trouble understanding the conversation. When the video stopped, he took off his headphones.

Fuck!