"Recent emails first," I say, taking over the mouse. My hands are trembling so badly I can barely control the mouse as I click into his inbox, the cursor jerking across the screen in stuttering, uneven movements that betray every ounce of my terror.
Spam. Bills. Rental property correspondence. Nothing.
"Try drafts," Raine suggests.
Empty.
"Sent items?"
I scroll down. Scroll. Scroll. Then freeze.
An email about special lock purchases catches my eye. I click into it, my pulse quickening as I start reading through the entire email chain, scrolling down through the conversation thread. He's apparently bought multiple high-end locks—expensive ones, the kind that require special installation and come with reinforced strike plates and anti-tamper features. The kind you don't just pick up at a hardware store on a whim.
Weird.
Suspicious.
Dated approximately one week before Claudia vanished without a trace. I know this with absolute certainty because I've memorized the exact date of her disappearance down to the hour—I've stared at that date so many times in news articles and police reports that it's burned into my brain like a brand.
"Holy shit," Raine breathes.
Julian appears behind us. "What?"
"Look." I point.
Julian’s jaw tightens. "Print it. Screenshot it. Whatever."
I fumble with the keyboard, saving everything I can. Then I navigate to another software—security cameras.
When we were living together, Daniel spent a lot of time monitoring the cameras—obsessively, really, though I didn'trealize it then. At the time, I thought it was kind of weird, sure, but I figured it was just one of those landlord things, necessary security measures since the building doesn't have actual security guards on staff or anything like that. There's no one sitting at a desk in the lobby watching monitors all day. Just Daniel.
Always Daniel, watching. He even let me play around with the system once or twice when I was curious, showing me how to pull up different angles, how to rewind footage, how to zoom in on specific areas. He seemed almost eager to demonstrate it, like he was proud of his surveillance setup.
The interface is clunky. I click wrong, backtrack, curse under my breath. Damn, I should have paid more attention, months ago.
Finally, the feed loads. Multiple angles. Entrance, lobby, hallways, parking lot.
So many cameras.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
My hands shake violently as I navigate through the camera feeds, my fingers trembling so badly I nearly miss the keys. I click through view after view, each one revealing another piece of Daniel's surveillance network.
God, there are so many cameras. The sheer number of them makes my skin crawl, makes me wonder how I ever felt safe in this building, in this apartment. Daniel really was paranoid—or maybe paranoid isn't even the right word for it. This goes beyond paranoia. This is obsession. This is control taken to a level I couldn't have imagined, even after everything I've seen him do.
"Nothing here," Raine mutters, leaning closer to the screen.
I keep clicking. Lobby. Hallway. Parking lot.
Then I click on one labeled "Maintenance room."
My breath hitches.
Are my eyes playing tricks on me?
Am I imagining this?
Am I going insane?
