Chapter 6 - The Signal Behind the Walls.
Owen did not let anyone touch the transmitter.
He photographed it where it lay, marked the position with a folded card, and called the private security consultant retained by Vance Global.
Marcus normally disliked bringing corporate people into his home.
That night, privacy had already been breached so thoroughly that the distinction felt meaningless.
Maria moved Leo to the guest nursery across the hall while Owen inspected the original room.
Marcus stood in the doorway watching her settle the baby into a portable crib.
She kept looking over her shoulder.
"You should go home tonight," Marcus said.
Maria looked at him sharply.
"And leave him here?"
"I didn't mean abandon him."
"I know."
She lowered her voice.
"But whoever put that thing in his room knew when I was there."
Marcus nodded.
"That's why I want you somewhere safe."
Maria looked toward Leo.
"Then he should be somewhere safe too."
The sentence stopped Marcus.
He had spent his entire adult life believing the estate was the safest place his family could be.
Gates.
Cameras.
Guards.
Steel-reinforced doors.
A security room most visitors never saw.
Yet someone had opened the nursery window and placed a listening device beneath his son's crib.
"You're right," he said.
Maria seemed surprised by how quickly he agreed.
"Where can we take him?"
Marcus thought for a moment.
Then he called Nathan back upstairs.
"The lake house."
Nathan frowned.
"Too obvious."
"The Manhattan apartment?"
"Worse."
Maria spoke quietly.
"My sister has a house in Larchmont."
Both men looked at her.
"No one in this family knows where she lives," Maria continued.
"Not Mrs. Vance."
"Not the staff."
"Not anyone at the company."
Marcus immediately shook his head.
"I won't put your sister in danger."
"Then don't send us there."
Maria's expression hardened.
"But please stop thinking expensive places are automatically safe places."
Nathan almost smiled.
Marcus did not.
Because again, she was right.
"For tonight, Leo stays with me," Marcus said.
"In the primary suite."
Maria nodded.
"I'll stay in the adjoining room."
"You don't have to."
"I know."
She looked directly at him.
"I'm choosing to."
Marcus accepted that.
Downstairs, the library had become an unofficial command center.
Grant sat in one chair without his phone.
Daniel stood beside the mantel.
Eleanor occupied the sofa with her arms folded.
Nobody spoke when Marcus entered.
Nathan followed and closed the doors.
"The device is being examined," Nathan said.
"Until we know who placed it, everyone remains available for questions."
Eleanor laughed softly.
"Available?"
"You mean detained."
Marcus looked at her.
"The doors aren't locked."
"Then I'm leaving."
She stood.
"You can."
Marcus's answer made her pause.
"Without Leo."
Eleanor's expression darkened.
"You keep repeating that like it gives you authority."
Nathan stepped in before the argument grew.
"Eleanor, given the undisclosed international itinerary and the circumstances tonight, taking Leo now would create a legal emergency for everyone."
"Including you."
Daniel glanced at his client.
"He's right about that."
Eleanor turned on him.
"Whose side are you on?"
"The side that doesn't turn a bad night into a worse court record."
Grant shifted in his chair.
"Can I leave?"
Marcus looked at him.
"Your devices stay."
"Fine."
Grant stood.
"Then yes."
Marcus watched him carefully.
"One more question."
Grant sighed.
"What?"
"Who is Calvin Ross?"
Grant stopped moving.
The name had come from a personnel record Owen found while tracing the external server session.
Calvin Ross was a systems contractor who had worked on the estate during the nursery renovation.
Grant took too long to answer.
"He does infrastructure work."
"For the company?"
"Sometimes."
"For you personally?"
"No."
Marcus saw Daniel look away.
"You know him," Marcus said to Daniel.
Daniel did not answer.
Nathan's gaze sharpened.
"Daniel?"
The lawyer rubbed his jaw.
"Calvin has done investigative support work for firms I've used."
Eleanor stared at him.
"You told me you didn't know anything about that device."
"I don't."
"But you know the person who had access to the nursery."
Daniel looked irritated now.
"Half the private legal community in New York knows Calvin Ross."
"He installs secure systems."
"He also finds weaknesses in them."
Marcus stepped closer.
"Did my mother hire him?"
Daniel shook his head.
"Not through me."
Nathan pulled out his phone.
"I'm calling him."
Daniel raised a hand.
"He won't answer."
"Why not?"
"Because Calvin disappeared six months ago."
The room went silent.
Grant looked genuinely confused.
"What do you mean disappeared?"
Daniel turned toward him.
"Stopped taking jobs."
"Closed his office."
"Moved out of his apartment."
"Nobody I know has heard from him."
Marcus thought of the nursery renovation.
It had been completed five months before Leo's birth.
That meant the device could have been installed long ago.
"How long can a transmitter like that operate?"
Nathan asked.
Daniel shook his head.
"I have no idea."
"But if it has power from the wall, maybe indefinitely."
Marcus looked toward the ceiling.
The device on the floor might only have been one component.
Owen arrived fifteen minutes later with the security consultant, a compact woman named Jenna Shaw.
Jenna had spent twelve years in federal protective services before opening her own firm.
She did not waste time with greetings.
"The device is not battery-powered."
Marcus looked at her.
"What powers it?"
"There is a thin lead running behind the baseboard."
"It connects to the nursery's low-voltage system."
"So it was installed during construction?"
"Most likely."
Eleanor's face changed.
Marcus noticed.
"You knew?"
"No."
Her answer was immediate.
Jenna continued.
"The unit isn't recording locally."
"It transmits."
"Where?"
"We followed the signal."
Marcus waited.
"It goes to a receiver somewhere on the property."
Owen opened a floor plan on his tablet.
A red circle covered the east grounds.
The old gardener's cottage sat near the edge.
It had been unused for years.
Marcus looked at Owen.
"Check it."
Jenna shook her head.
"Not yet."
"Why?"
"Because if someone is there, I'd rather know before they know we found the transmitter."
Marcus disliked waiting.
He disliked it even more when waiting was correct.
Jenna asked Owen to keep normal camera patterns running while she and one guard approached the cottage from the tree line.
Marcus watched on a thermal camera from the security room.
For several minutes, nothing moved.
Then Jenna raised one hand.
A heat signature appeared inside the cottage.
Human-sized.
Moving.
Maria stood behind Marcus, having come downstairs after Leo fell asleep in the primary suite.
"Someone is in there," she whispered.
Marcus nodded.
Jenna reached the back door.
It was unlocked.
She entered.
The thermal image vanished behind the cottage walls.
Thirty seconds passed.
A minute.
Then Jenna's voice came through Owen's radio.
"Room clear."
Marcus frowned.
"What about the heat signature?"
A pause.
"Space heater."
"But you need to see this."
Marcus, Nathan, and Owen went to the cottage.
Jenna met them at the doorway.
Inside, the old gardener's table was covered with electronics.
A receiver.
Two hard drives.
Headphones.
Printed photographs.
Marcus stepped closer.
The photographs showed the nursery.
The hallway.
The front gate.
Maria pushing Leo's stroller through the garden.
Eleanor leaving for a luncheon.
Marcus getting into his car.
Someone had been documenting the household for months.
Nathan picked up one photograph.
"This is from before Leo was born."
It showed Eleanor standing near the greenhouse with Grant.
The date printed along the bottom was eight months earlier.
Grant had told Marcus he almost never visited the estate socially.
The image suggested otherwise.
Marcus picked up another photograph.
Eleanor was speaking to a man beside the gardener's cottage.
The man's face was turned away.
He wore a baseball cap and dark work jacket.
Jenna studied it.
"Could be Calvin."
Marcus turned the photo over.
A handwritten note appeared on the back.
SHE THINKS HE WORKS FOR HER.
Marcus's skin prickled.
"Who is she?"
Nathan answered quietly.
"Eleanor."
Jenna pointed to a second note beneath the first.
MARCH 14 - G.B. CHANGED TERMS.
Marcus recognized the initials.
Grant Brennan.
"This person was watching both of them," Marcus said.
"Not working for them."
"Maybe working for someone else," Jenna replied.
Owen opened one of the notebooks on the table.
Pages of dates, names, and short observations filled it.
Most entries referred to E.V., G.B., D.C., and M.V.
Then Owen stopped.
"There's another set of initials."
Marcus looked.
A.B.
Abigail Vance.
The entries went back three years.
Before Abigail died.
Nathan stared at the notebook.
"Calvin didn't disappear."
Marcus understood.
"He moved here."
Jenna looked around the cottage.
"Or someone wanted us to think he did."
A floorboard creaked beneath Marcus's shoe.
He looked down.
Jenna knelt and lifted the loose board.
Underneath was a small waterproof case.
Inside were two passports, a stack of cash, and a prepaid phone.
One passport belonged to Calvin Ross.
The other belonged to someone Marcus had never seen.
But the photograph was the same man.
Different name.
Elliot Reed.
Nathan turned pale.
"I know that name."
Marcus looked at him.
"From where?"
Nathan stared at the passport.
"It was in one of Abigail's old legal files."
"Elliot Reed was the investigator who first warned her about Eleanor."
Marcus looked around the cottage again.
The photographs suddenly felt less like surveillance and more like evidence collection.
"So who is Calvin Ross?"
Nathan's answer was barely audible.
"Maybe the same man."
Jenna picked up the prepaid phone.
It lit when she pressed the side button.
One unread message appeared on the screen.
It had arrived twelve minutes earlier.
The message contained only six words.
MARCUS FOUND THE ROOM.
LEAVE NOW.
May you like
Someone knew exactly where Marcus was.
And that someone was still watching.
