Page 31 of His Obsession

“No,” Lucian says. “I am the only one who had direct access. You are aware of every time access was granted to anyone else, and I was selective about who had access.”

“Oh… Well, that’s okay,” I say. “It would just be weird if people were just watching me sleep.”

“Speaking of footage,” Lucian says. “Anyone who has a security camera outside of their home, no matter if you are near Elise or not, I ask if you could get me the footage for the last month.”

“I’ve already emailed you mine,” Laura says.

“Lucian,” Carol says, looking at her laptop.

“Yes?”

“The gate was opened with your code,” she says, looking up at him. Lucian walks around the table to look at her screen.

“I use Dad’s code now,” he says. “How often is that code used?”

“Daily,” she says cautiously.

“Son of a…” Lucian starts to say but stops and takes a deep breath.

“What does that mean?” I ask quietly.

“It means… Someone had unlimited access to the community,” Bradley says to me.

“Does anyone have a laptop I can use?” I ask.

“You can use mine,” Bradley says. He moves his over in front of me. Everyone is watching as I get into my alarm system. I created the software that it runs off of, so I know how to access it remotely. The password is over thirty characters long, so it’s not like anyone can guess it. I’m not even sure how I remember it.

I start looking at the activity log as Lucian comes around to see what I’m doing. “I’m so confused,” Bradley mutters.

“When were you normally coming into my house?” I ask Lucian. He taps around on his phone and shows me a list of times for the camera footage, and I compare it to when my alarm was accessed. “This can’t be right.”

“What is it?” Lucian asks.

“It’s showing that the times are correct for when you came in. It would show, for example, that you turned off the alarm at midnight, and then reset it when you left at two in the morning, but then it would be shut off again less than ten minutes later. It would be reset about thirty minutes before my alarm would go off at four thirty. Last week, it was also being accessed, but it would turn off around ten and be reset just a few seconds later.”

“Oh, that’s not good,” Bradley says, looking up at Lucian. “That means…”

“I know,” Lucian says simply. “I know what it means.”

“I have something,” Laura says, nearly shouting. “What time did Elise call you today?”

“5:22 PM, why?” Lucian asks.

“What time did you get to her?” she asks.

“Probably four minutes later. Why?” Lucian asks again.

“I have someone on my camera with a ceremonial mask on entering her house at 5:19 PM. They never left out of the front door,” she says. “They were still in the house when you guys checked.”

“Mom’s stuff,” I say as I jump up. Lucian tries to grab my arm, but I pull away and run out of the room. When I hit the sidewalk, I sprint toward my house. Everything is a blur. I don’t know how, but I know now that this involves my mother. If she thought I was in danger, this would be the safest place for me. She trusted everyone here and that’s why she bought a house in this gated community. She knew if I was here, they would protect me in any way they could.

The door is wide open when I get there, so I slow my pace as I step into the house. Every light in my house is on, which is weird. I never turn everything on because it’s too fucking bright. I goto the basement, because that’s the last place I was when I was searching. Before I can walk down, Lucian grabs me.

“Fuck, Elise,” he says as he hugs me. “You can’t fucking do that.”

“It’s about her. I know it is,” I say as I pull away and look at him. “It makes sense now. If she thought I was in danger, that’s why she found me. She told me she was my aunt, because it hurt less, but she knew she was sick when she reached out. She bought this house and made sure I would get it. Because of how I grew up, she knew I would move here. She knew If I moved here, everyone would keep me safe. She knew someone was after me. My old apartment… We had a problem with the doors and windows always being left open or unlocked. We always blamed each other, but what if it was someone looking for me or just watching me?”

“If that’s the case, then it would have to be…”