Chapter 9

• Nathaniel's POV
• The video ended long ago, but it was still playing in my mind.
• Looped in my head slower each time.
• Davis strolled towards the pool. The shove. The splash. The dark figure. One second too quick, one second too premeditated. Then there was Jenna, still by my side, silent but almost readable. The video was overshadowed by her statement.
• "But someone used our plan."
• Ours.
• No.
• Not them.
• Ours.
• It was a slip, I told myself. Possibly Jenna might have simply repeated anything Sophie had said without giving it much thought... However, the wording was very detailed. Too precise.
• Suddenly, a chilly, ancient feeling awoke within me. Without a question.
• Only a signal. A silent one.
• When things start to go wrong, I've learnt to trust that same feeling.
• I began to voice questions I wasn't prepared to receive a response to. I couldn't let her witness me spiral.
• Not quite yet.
• Not until I was sure of what was going on.
• "I'll have the tech team enlarge the frame." I pocketed the flash drive with a composed ease that didn't reveal the havoc building inside of me.
• Jenna nodded a bit too quickly. In her lap, her fingers were clinched. "You don't think it was a member of your father's social circle?"
• "Perhaps," I said calmly.
• "Or perhaps someone who wished to spoil the one occasion when we were relaxed." She did not flinch. Her silence, however, was quite telling.
• Was it?
• I had trouble sleeping that night.
• I listened to her quiet, steady, nearly flawless breathing as I laid next to her in bed. Her arm lay between us like a silent boundary that I wasn't sure I could pass. Across the hall, the girls were fast asleep. There was silence in the house.
• Calm.
• However, I wasn't.
• I got a gut feeling that she was concealing something. All of my emotions, however, pleaded with me not to believe it.
• Sleeping, she rolled over and pressed her cheek against my shoulder. I shut my eyes.
• I wanted her to be innocent.
• I needed her to be.
• And I detested my strong desire to have faith in her. I got out of bed shortly after two in the morning.
• As I stepped inside and clicked the study door behind me, it made a slight creaking sound. Reinstalling the flash disk in the computer allowed me to view the video once more. Frame by frame.
• The figure was slenderly built. Intentional. The shove wasn't a panic but rather a well-practiced angle. And, their movements... weren't random. It wasn't a coincidence.
• It was an act.
• I quickly glanced at the timestamp, which read 8:31 PM.
• Jenna had been where at the time? My thoughts were racing. Entrance to the party. By the pool. The instant I took hold of her wrist and yanked her away.
• She wasn't close to the scene. However, she had been trying to reach it. I recalled her voice, reluctant.
• "Wait, I—"
• As if she was meant to be somewhere else. Was the time perfect? Or was there something I was interrupting?
• I panned in.
• A haze of black fabric. Something metallic glinting at the wrist.
• A bracelet? A watch?
• I rubbed my temples while leaning back in the chair. This marriage began in an odd way. Hurried. Set up. Convenient to everyone.
• But not anymore.
• Cracks appeared now. Whispers. Quiet lies.
• It all felt so familiar, and I detested it.
• I opened a new folder on my own server at 3:07 a.m.
• J. Discreet Investigation
• I had no desire to do it.
• However, I had to.
• Because if the Blackwoods knew anything, it was that reckless love equals suicide.
• Henry leaned over the monitors in the security wing the following morning, holding a mug of coffee that smelled like it had died twice. When I stepped in, he didn't look up. He never does. Only if the house was burning—or going to burn.
• "Are there any items on the side gates?" Watching the screens flicker through gray-toned footage of nothing,
• I stood behind him and asked. He gave a grunt. "Not helpful. It was done by someone who knew what they were doing. Cleaned half of the east drive. It is a purposeful overwrite rather than a corrupted feed."
• I clenched my jaw. "Identical to the last hacker's signature?"
• He shook his head. "Cleaner. As if they wished us to take notice. They seem to be saying that they can delve further at any time."
• That didn't sit well with me.
• "It might be the same individual who sent the flash drive." I suggested.
• Henry scratched the bridge of his nose and sat back in his chair. "It might be. However, it seems like someone is playing a more strategic game here."
• "A game?"
• He gave a nod. "Or a cautionary tale."
• With the estate grid flashing red in the corners where cameras had gone black for the past week, I bent over the digital security map that was laid out on the console. Too many mistakes. Too many 'coincidences.' This was not a malfunction. This was an infringement.
• "I need you to keep an eye on someone." Henry's gaze briefly lifted to mine. The house is about to burn.
• He didn't inquire as to who.
• "Jenna." I said after a long pause.
• He didn't react. He didn't blink at all. As if he had been waiting for me to say it, he simply leaned back and let out a breath.
• "With discretion," I added. No shadows. Don't follow her. Only system notifications. Message logs, external pings, and phone data that are sent over our Wi-Fi. I want to know right away if something strange happens.
• Henry nodded slowly. "Do you desire complete access?"
• "No. Not quite yet. Only the water's edge."
• "Do you believe she's involved?"
• I averted my gaze, looking for the right words. My fingers tapped the desk's corner restlessly. "I think I'm at a loss for what to believe."
• That was the reality. It was the fact that I didn't want to accept it that I detested the most, not the uncertainty itself.
• "I will not speak of it," Henry declared. "Only you will be aware of it." He made no attempt to reassure. He did not assure me of her innocence. And in some way... that made things worse.
• I went back to the study.
• I had no intention of doing so. Something caused me to hesitate. The silence that creeps behind your ears just before the sound of thunder. That sense of stimulated air.
• Then I noticed it.
• A letter. It was lying on the rug directly under the door, as if it had smuggled itself in and was still alive. Not a stamp. No address for return. Cardstock in cream. Folded with almost perfect symmetry in half.
• It had no name on it, not Jenna's nor mine, nor anyone else's.
• There was only a folded note inside. Jenna's handwriting wasn't like that. Amelia didn't own it.
• However, it was familiar—familiar in the sense that trauma can be. Sharp. Swayed. Angry but in control.
• Just one sentence.
• "She isn't who you think. You're not either."
• As if they might rearrange themselves into something more agreeable, I gazed at the words.
• They didn't.
• I read the line once more. This time, more slowly. She isn't who you think.
• In an instant, the paper response had changed into something more... something toasty. Real. Right now... I wasn't entirely certain.
• "You're not either."
• I was stopped harder by that line than the first time. Because perhaps that was the true purpose of this.
• Not Jenna.
• Me.
• I was breaching my own rules, and someone knew it.
• I carefully folded the message, and returned it into the envelope.
• Now, two cautions.
• Same message.
• I took a seat, struck a match, and held it slightly over the paper's edge.
• I didn't burn it.
• I let the match burn out between my fingers. I could need these notes.
• Not as proof.
• As answers.
• I picked up my phone. "I need you to keep an eye on someone."