Chapter 3: The Hidden Camera
I stepped away from the officer and Dr. Aris, walking into a secluded corner of the waiting room. "Marjorie? If you're calling to apologize, save your breath. The police are standing right next to me."
"No, Ethan, listen to me!" Marjorie hissed, her voice trembling with genuine terror. "You think tonight was the first time? You think this was just a sudden whim of your mother's? You don't know what she's been doing. You don't know what she made me do."
A cold sweat broke out across my neck. "What are you talking about?"
"Vivian... she's unhinged, Ethan. She's been documenting everything. She hired me not to care for Lila, but to monitor her. To find flaws. She told me if I didn't help her 'discipline' Lila, she would use her connections to ruin my nursing license and ensure my son lost his scholarship. I was trapped."
"You helped her torture my wife!" I shouted, attracting stares from across the waiting room. I lowered my voice, my teeth grinding. "Why are you calling me now?"
"Because after you left, she went berserk," Marjorie whispered, a sob breaking through her words. "She started destroying things in the house, saying she was going to have Lila declared unfit, that she would take the baby and leave you with nothing. She's packing her things to leave the country before the police come. But Ethan... there's something you need to see. Something that will stop her permanently."
"What?"
"Two weeks ago, Vivian had hidden cameras installed in your nursery, your bedroom, and the kitchen. She wanted 'evidence' of Lila's inadequacy to use in a custody battle later. But the cameras recorded everything. They recorded the psychological abuse. They recorded the threats. And they recorded what happened tonight from start to finish."
My blood ran cold. The nursery. The room we had painted light blue, the room where we were supposed to bring our son home, had been violated by my mother’s surveillance.
"Where is the footage, Marjorie?"
"It's routed to a local server box hidden in the master bedroom closet, behind the built-in shoe racks. There’s a master tablet in Vivian's study that controls it. She's trying to wipe the server right now, but she doesn't know I changed the admin password yesterday because I was scared she was going to frame me. I'm leaving the tablet in the mailbox outside your house. Get to the server box before she finds a way to smash it. If she destroys that data, it’s your word against hers, and the Carlisle lawyers will destroy you in court."
The line went dead.
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I stood frozen for a second. The depth of the conspiracy, the sheer malice of the woman who raised me, was a gaping abyss. She wasn't just trying to control Lila; she was actively plotting to steal our child and destroy our lives.
I walked back to the police officer. "Officer, I need you to accompany me back to my house right now. There is evidence of ongoing, systemic abuse and a corporate espionage-level surveillance setup. And the perpetrator is currently destroying the crime scene."
