The Watcher Girl(41)

“Security certificate should last a week,” he writes back. “If you need longer, it’ll cost you.”

A week should be plenty. It’s not my intention to spy. I’m not trying to be a creep.

I find the payment link he sent yesterday and send the $1,000 before clicking back to the camera footage. Headers at the top of the page connect to six other cameras—front door, back door, garage, kitchen, hallway, and nursery.

I check the nursery first, though it’s impossible to know if the diaper pail is full, and other than a folded baby blanket hanging over the side of the crib, there’s no way of determining the last time Gigi slept there.

The hallway gives me nothing. Just a dark, narrow space with picture-frame-covered walls and closed doors. At the front door, a UPS package waits, and at the back door, a pink ride-on toy sits sideways in the grass by the patio. I click to the garage camera next, only to find two empty stalls and an oil stain where one car should be.

Save for a pizza box on the stove, the kitchen is pristine.

Sutton, with all his many talents, was never a master chef. Is the pizza sitting out because Campbell’s not there to cook for him?

A red flash fills the top of the screen, accompanied by the words SECURITY ALERT. My heart leaps into my throat—I’m certain Sutton is being notified of this breach this very instant—but then I realize it’s nothing more than the system letting me know the garage door has been opened.

I swallow my concerns and click on the garage camera, watching the door to the north stall rise slow and steady. Seconds later a white sedan pulls in—and Campbell climbs out of the driver’s side.

I don’t breathe. I don’t move.

Campbell unfastens Gigi from the back seat before retrieving a leather duffel and a polka-dot diaper bag.

She left him.

She obviously left him.

And it explains the ghosting.

It also explains why Sutton was so upset . . . he must have blamed me.

Exhaling, I switch from camera to camera, silently observing as she drops the bags at the door and makes her way down the hall and to the living room. Grabbing a couple of toys from the basket, she carries her daughter to the kitchen, placing her in her high chair and ensuring she’s occupied before she begins to fix a snack . . . like it’s any other day.

I don’t understand.

My phone buzzes with a text from Rose, pulling me out of this virtual reality nightmare, and I glance at the time.

We’re supposed to arrive at the prison in an hour.

I power off my computer, grab the books I bought for our mom, and head downstairs.

I’ll check on Campbell later . . . one more time . . . just to make sure she’s okay.





CHAPTER 23

My adoptive mother has hardly aged since the last time I saw her. I suppose it makes sense, the lack of sunlight and all. Her hair is still the straw-like gray blonde, like before, but aside from the sinking hollows below her eyes, she’s virtually unchanged. Same pencil-thin brows. Same humbled, close-mouthed smile.

“Grace.” Her voice is tender, and her body swims in her garish orange uniform, a color that does nothing for her. A hint of life colors her irises before fading away as if it was a figment of my imagination.

I think about what it must have been like possessing beauty that couldn’t be ignored and a bank account that could afford any of life’s luxuries—big and small. And then I think about what it might be like for her now—bartering for hair dye and stomaching third-rate cafeteria food.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’re here,” she says.

We’re in a space filled with tables and chairs and guards. There’s no glass partition separating us like last time. Her hands and feet are cuffed, but she keeps them tucked out of sight, holding my gaze on hers as if it could keep me from looking.

Rose waits in the next room. I asked for a moment alone with Mom first, and she obliged without question, even offering to take the stack of hardbacks I brought to the security desk for approval.

“Rose told me you didn’t have anything to do with that true crime book,” I say.

Her eyes, slightly crinkled at the corners, squint, and then she nods.

“Why didn’t you deny it? When I came in here that day, you let me say all those terrible things, and you just sat there and took it,” I say.

She glances into her lap, then back to me. “You were so angry. And you were hurting. You needed to say those things to me, you needed to get it all out so we could have a civilized conversation.” Mom winces. “But you tore out of here before that could happen.” She raises her palms in protest, and the silver cuffs glint in the fluorescent light. “I’m not upset with you for any of it. It’s in the past. You’re here now, and that’s all that matters.”

“I don’t understand why you’d let me believe that lie,” I say, “for so long.”

I know I need to apologize. And I will. Someday. Right now the words swim around my head before getting lost on the way to my lips.

“I sent you letters. They all came back.” She glances at the clock on the wall, the one ironically protected behind metal bars. I can’t imagine what it’s like mentally calculating the remaining minutes you have to visit someone, watching the second hand sweep all that time away.

“You could’ve said something to Rose.”