Dana held Sophie's tablet so Ruth and I could see. The feed showed our driveway from above β my truck, the fire engine, the evidence bags, the five of us standing in a half-circle. The timestamp was live.
"The camera isn't on the roof anymore," Grace said. She was studying the angle like an engineer. "The signal is getting stronger. It's inside."
Ruth's radio crackled. She ordered everyone away from my front door.
Dana opened the network map on Travis's laptop. A second device had connected to my router at 2:08 that morning.
The label read: ATTIC RELAY.
"I never placed anything in my attic," I said.
The feed on Sophie's tablet shifted. Now it showed my upstairs hallway, filmed from behind an air vent near the ceiling. The image was grainy but clear enough.
Then someone walked through the frame.
Only his legs were visible at first. Jeans. Work boots. He stopped outside Mia's bedroom door.
A hand appeared near the vent. He was holding something small and metallic.
"That's one of my spare keys," I said. "The one from the kitchen drawer."
Ruth asked if Mia was home.
"She spent the night at a friend's house. I've been alone since Friday evening."
The figure moved out of frame. A moment later the feed changed angle β the camera panned, and we were looking at the attic access in my hallway ceiling. The panel hung open, the pull-down stairs extended. I'd never pulled those stairs down in the two years I'd lived there. I barely knew they existed.
The man climbed down. He wore a dark mask over the lower half of his face. He carried a black equipment case.
On the lid of the case was an emblem. A shield shape. The words beneath it were too small to read on the tablet, but Dana zoomed the laptop's network capture.
"Sentinel Home Group," she said.
The man set the case on my hallway floor and opened it.
Inside were printed photographs. He laid them out one by one, and the camera above caught each one.
Grace. Sophie. Mia. Me.
Grace's photograph had been crossed out in red marker. A hard X, corner to corner.
Beneath Sophie's photograph, someone had written a single word in block letters: RELOCATE.
Under Mia's photograph was a time: 9:30 TONIGHT.
"What's RELOCATE mean?" Sophie whispered.
Nobody answered her.
The man turned toward the hidden camera. He seemed to realize we were watching. He reached up and took off the mask β
"Stop," Grace said suddenly. "Don't watch this on a screen. Something's wrong with the angle."
She was right. The moment his hands moved toward the mask, the feed stuttered. The image froze, jumped, and came back. His face was turned three-quarters away, toward the attic stairs.
"There," Grace said. "He knows the camera's there. He's showing us he knows."
Then he did something strange. He raised one hand, palm toward the lens. Three fingers open. He closed them. Opened them again.
Grace went very still beside me.
"What is that?" Ruth asked.
"Nothing," Grace said quickly. Too quickly. "Probably a habit."
But her hands were shaking, and she wouldn't look at the tablet anymore.
On the screen, the man closed the equipment case and stood. He walked toward Mia's bedroom door and stopped with his hand on the knob.
"My daughter isn't home," I said again, louder this time. "Whatever he's doing, she isn't home."
Ruth was already on her radio. "Suspect inside the residence. Possible access to smart-home controls. Do not enter until power and network are isolated."
Dana disconnected Travis's laptop from my router.
The effect was immediate. My house alarm activated β the full siren, inside and out. Every exterior door locked with an audible clunk. The garage door lowered. The living room blinds closed by themselves.
Then a synthetic voice announced from inside the house: "SECURITY CONDITION ACTIVE."
Travis, watching from the patrol car, went pale.
Ruth asked him what was happening.
He stared at my house. "He activated a property hold."
"Explain."
"The house isolates itself. He can control the doors." Travis swallowed. "He can control more than that."
As if to prove it, the smoke detectors started sounding. Then my phone buzzed with a notification I had never seen before:
CARBON MONOXIDE DETECTED β BASEMENT.
The fire chief checked his equipment. "No reading outside," he said. "It may be false."
Travis shook his head. "The system uses alerts to force people out of rooms."
"Force them where?" Dana asked.
"Wherever he wants the cameras to see them."
Grace looked up at my roof. "Turn the array completely off," she said. "All of it. Now."