Page 41 of The Life She Had

Of course it is, because “what it seems to be” makes sense for a device poised over a crack in my bedroom ceiling.

I pull it from a plastic holder tacked onto the floor joist to keep the device in place.

And that device?

It’s a goddamn camera.

Someone is recording me sleeping.

Oh no, they’re recording more than me sleeping. I remember the other night, when Liam slept over.

What the actual hell?

It takes all my strength not to start cursing out loud. I stare down at the device. It’s definitely a camera, and it’s definitely running, that warning light seeming to indicate an error, maybe a low battery, given the decreasing strength of that flash.

I’m standing there, shining my light over the camera, when I pick up footprints on the floor. I go still. Then, keeping my own feet in place, I bend with the flashlight. There are at least a dozen prints, too smudged to make out more than that they are definitely shoe prints of some sort. But there, only a few feet away, are two very distinct prints. Prints from shoes smaller than mine.

I take a cell phone photo of the tread. Then I head down two flights of stairs to the main floor. Daisy’s sneakers are there, right by the front door. I check against the photo. It’s the same tread.

Daisy set up that camera.

Set up a camera over my bedroom.

I want to storm to her room, slam open that jammed door and shove the camera in her face. She’d deny it. I know she would.

Does that matter? It’s my damn house. I don’t need a reason to kick her out.

But if I kick her out, I can’t use her with Liam. If she did this, then am I really going to feel that bad about setting her up? That’s a bonus, isn’t it?

I turn the camera over, thinking. To use this, she needs it to be transmitting the video somewhere. To another device, like a phone or laptop or tablet. She’s been pretending she’s tech-free, but obviously, she has something, and if I can get it, I might be able to find out what the hell our Miss Daisy is up to.

She’s blocking her bedroom door, but it’s open during the day, so I doubt her device is in there. Where else would it be?

In the shed.

I checkedthe shed the night Daisy slept in the lanai, while Liam was here. I’d put on his overcoat and went out into the rain to have a look. I had a stranger in my house, and I had to be sure she at least seemed to be what she claimed. I’d found a few things that supported her story. That utility knife, a wad of protein bar wrappers, a water bottle, even a map of Florida with her route marked.

Staged to look as if she was who she seemed to be, and I fell for it, not digging deeper into the debris. Now I’m out there, and I’m sure as hell digging deeper.

I take the interior apart, moving each piece and examining the ground for signs that she’s buried something. In the end, I don’t find a tech device, but I do find something. Something so much worse.

I find a gun.

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