Chapter 3 - The Cold Discovery
By 8:00 AM, Vance Sterling had arrived at Clara’s cottage.
He was a tall, imposing man in his late forties, with salt-and-pepper hair and a quiet, analytical demeanor that instantly made me feel safe. He didn't show shock when he saw my new haircut or the bandages on my neck; he simply opened his black leather notebook and began taking notes with professional precision.
"We need to move quickly," Vance said, his voice deep and reassuring. "If Lorraine Cole realized she dropped her earring, she’s going to try to cover her tracks. Olivia, does your house have a security system?"
"We have a Ring doorbell," I said. "And there’s a floodlight camera over the garage."
"Is the account linked to your phone or Nathan’s?"
"Both," I said. "But Nathan has the master admin login. He’s the one who set it up."
Vance frowned, his fingers tapping against his notebook. "If Nathan is trying to protect his mother, he might have already deleted the footage from last night. Let's check your app right now."
I pulled out my phone, my fingers trembling slightly as I opened the security app. I scrolled through the event history for the previous night.
My stomach dropped.
"It’s gone," I whispered, showing the screen to Vance. "The history between midnight and 4:00 AM is completely blank. There are no recordings. He deleted them."
"He thought he did," Vance said, a faint, dangerous smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "The standard consumer apps allow users to delete local clips, but the cloud servers maintain a diagnostic recovery log for forty-eight hours in case of system errors. I have a contact at the security company’s compliance division. I can get the raw, unedited backup files subpoenaed once we file the police report, but I can also get an informal copy sent to my agency within the hour."
"Can you really do that?" Clara asked.
"I can," Vance said. "But we need more than just the outdoor footage. Olivia, did you have any cameras inside the house?"
I paused, my mind racing through the layout of our home. "No. Nathan always said indoor cameras were a violation of privacy. He hated the idea of being watched."
"What about your studio?" Vance asked. "The design business you own with Nathan?"
"We have full surveillance there," I said. "But that's three miles away from the house."
"Wait," I said suddenly, a memory sparking through the fog of my exhaustion. "My laptop. I keep my work laptop on the vanity desk in our bedroom. It’s an enterprise-grade Macbook that my design firm leased. Because of our high-profile corporate clients, our IT security protocols require a background software called SentryLock to run twenty-four hours a day."
Vance leaned forward, his eyes sharp. "What does SentryLock do?"
"It’s an anti-theft program," I explained, my heart beginning to beat faster. "If the laptop detects unusual motion or sound in the room while it’s in sleep mode, it automatically activates the built-in webcam and microphone to record a ten-second diagnostic clip of the surrounding area. It saves the clips directly to our off-site IT server in Chicago, completely independent of our home network."
"And your laptop was on the vanity?" Clara asked, her voice rising with excitement. "Right across from the bed?"
"Yes," I said. "And it was plugged in. If Lorraine was making noise, if she was shouting or if the shears were snapping..."
"The laptop would have recorded it," Vance finished, a cold, satisfied look in his eyes. "Olivia, I need you to log into your company’s IT portal right now."
My hands flew over my phone, logging into the secure design studio server. I navigated to the hardware security log for my specific laptop.
There were three motion-activated video files timestamped from last night.
The first was at 2:11 AM.
The second was at 2:15 AM.
The third was at 2:18 AM.
I clicked the first file. The video was dark, but the high-definition lens of the laptop captured the room perfectly under the blue glow of the moonlight.
The screen showed the bedroom door opening slowly. Nathan stepped in, holding the door open for his mother. Lorraine Cole was dressed in a dark wool coat, her silver hair perfectly coiffed, a look of pure, venomous determination on her face.
She wasn't hysterical. She wasn't crying. She looked like a surgeon preparing for a procedure.
"She’s asleep," Nathan’s voice whispered, the microphone picking up the sound with terrifying clarity. "Mom, please. Let's just talk to her tomorrow. This is crazy."
"She is a cheating little tramp, Nathan," Lorraine’s voice hissed back, her tone dripping with a quiet, icy malice that made my skin crawl. "She is dragging our name through the dirt. If you don't have the stomach to handle her, I will. Go back to the living room."
"Mom—"
"Go, Nathan!" she snapped. "Or I will tell your father about the money you 'borrowed' from the corporate account last month."
Nathan flinched on screen. He looked at my sleeping form on the bed, then turned around and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Lorraine turned toward the bed. She reached into her pocket and pulled out my kitchen shears.
I couldn't watch the rest. I pressed pause, my body shaking with a mixture of terror and utter disgust.
Nathan hadn't just let her in out of confusion or panic. He had been blackmailed. He had allowed his mother to mutilate his wife to protect his own dirty financial secrets.
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"We have them," Clara whispered, her eyes filled with tears as she wrapped her arms around my shoulders. "We have them both, Olivia."
"This is no longer a domestic dispute," Vance Sterling said, his voice cold and authoritative as he stood up, grabbing his coat. "This is blackmail, conspiracy, and felony assault. I’m calling the State’s Attorney directly. We are bypass-routing the local precinct entirely."
