CHAPTER 4: The Monitor Exposes the Lie

Eleanor stared at the monitor as if it had spoken in a language she did not want to understand. She turned slowly toward Ryan.
"Tell me that is not you."
Ryan opened his mouth, but nothing came at first. His eyes moved to the door, then to Mr. Hayes, then to Maria, as though looking for the weakest person in the room and finding none.
"The footage is unclear," he said.
It was the wrong answer.
Maria's cheek was still red. Grace was still trembling against her side. The pearl necklace, the accusation, the slap - all of it had been built on Ryan's careful suggestion.
Eleanor took one step back. For a moment she looked less like the owner of the mansion and more like a mother who had struck the person protecting her child.
"Maria," she said, her voice breaking without becoming loud. "I was wrong."
Maria did not answer. She lowered her eyes to Grace's hair and breathed slowly.
Ryan laughed once, thinly. "This is absurd. You are trusting a child's monitor over me?"
Mr. Hayes folded his hands in front of him. "No, sir. We are trusting what you did when you thought no one was watching."