Behind the workbench was a small access panel, painted the same gray as the wall. Grace pried it open with a screwdriver from her apron pocket.
Inside was a row of communication cables. Some were modern β clean jackets, color-coded, the kind of cable a contractor buys off a shelf. Others were older, cloth-wrapped, the insulation cracked at the bends.
Grace traced one blue cable with her fingertip, following it along the wall, behind a shelf of labeled boxes, down to where it disappeared into the concrete floor.
"It connects to Daniel's house," she said.
"How?" I asked.
"Old cable television conduit." She looked up at me. "The two properties once shared a utility branch, back when both lots belonged to the same farm. SunHarvest reused it without either of us knowing."
Ruth crouched beside the panel. "And what is this?"
Grace opened a metal junction box mounted beside the cables. Inside was a device with a blinking amber light. A small white label was stuck to its casing.
It read THORNTON TEST NODE 01.
Simone stepped closer. "Is this transmitting?"
"Yes," Grace said. "To Peter. It has been for years."
"What did it do originally?" I asked.
Grace touched the casing the way she touched her tomatoes β gently, like something alive. "My son installed this before Sophie was born."
"What did it do?" Simone repeated.
"Originally?" Grace sat down on a wooden stool and folded her hands in her lap. "It called for help."
She explained. Peter had started his career designing emergency communication systems for older residents. The idea was simple: the device watched for power failures, smoke alarms, medical-alert buttons. If a senior fell, or lost electricity in a storm, the node would send a signal. Neighboring nodes would relay it along until it reached emergency services.
"It did not record video," Grace said. "It did not unlock doors. It did not collect personal schedules."
"How did it turn into that?" I asked.
"Sentinel Home Group bought Peter's small company." She looked at the amber light. "It was a small operation β three employees, a handful of contracts with retirement homes. He was proud of it. When Sentinel came with an offer, he told me it meant his idea would finally reach more people than he could ever reach alone."
"And it did," Ruth said. "Just not the way he meant." Grace's voice stayed even, but her hands tightened. "Then SunHarvest offered to integrate the nodes with solar systems, so the nodes would keep working during power outages. The neighborhood network began as a safety system."
"And someone realized it could carry more than emergency signals," Simone said.
Grace nodded. "Location data. Camera feeds. Wi-Fi credentials. Smart-lock commands."
"Did Peter know?"
"He knew more than he admitted." She looked at the amber light. "He stayed with Sentinel after the acquisition. He told me the new system would help people remain in their homes. He told me it would let seniors live alone without being alone."
"Did you believe him?"
"I wanted to." Grace stood and walked to a shelf of metal boxes. She pulled one down labeled with a year β the year Sophie was born β and set it on the workbench. Inside were photographs. Peter in a graduation gown. Peter holding a baby Sophie. Peter and his wife Hannah at a lake, both of them laughing.
"I wanted to believe him," she said again, quieter. "Then after his wife died, something changed in him. He stopped calling on Sundays. He stopped bringing Sophie by. And when I asked, he always said work was demanding."
She put the photographs back carefully, one by one.
"That was the answer he gave for everything, those last years. Work. As if the word explained why a man stops being a father and a son."
The amber light kept blinking. Steady. Patient. As if nothing in the room had changed.
"Why would Peter build a fallback like this?" I asked. "If he was working for them?"
"Because he never fully trusted them," Grace said. "Even at the beginning. A man who builds an emergency system builds the emergency exit first. Peter always built the exit. It was the one habit Sentinel never trained out of him."
"How long has it been transmitting?" Simone asked.
"Since this morning." Grace didn't look away from the box. "Peter programmed it as a fallback. If the main network went down long enough, the old line would wake up and reconnect."
"The main network went down," I said slowly. "When Iβwhen Grace painted the panels. The fourth time."
"Yes," Grace said. "That was the trigger."
Simone opened her tablet. "So right now, Peter is sending data through this device. To whom?"
"To everyone he listed," Grace said. "He prepared it years ago, in case he ever decided to use it."
"And did he decide?" Ruth asked.
Grace looked at the amber light for a long moment. "We are about to find out."