CHAPTER 5: The Nursery Camera

Police arrived within minutes, but the intruder had left no obvious fingerprints.

The stolen locket was more than sentimental evidence. It matched the bracelet Victor possessed and linked Elena to the items recorded in Isabella Vance’s estate inventory.

More disturbing was the photograph of Noah.

Celeste accused Elena immediately.

“She wants my son removed from the family,” she told officers at the estate. “Now she invents a threat so she can look like a victim.”

Elena stood in the same foyer where she had been slapped. This time the room was empty except for Victor, Celeste, Grant Mercer, and two detectives.

“I did not photograph your baby,” Elena said.

Celeste held Noah close. “You reached for him tonight.”

“To fix his blanket.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

Victor stepped between them. “Enough.”

Grant suggested that both women remain under protection at the estate until the threat was understood. Elena distrusted him, but Rosa’s apartment was no longer safe.

She agreed only if Rosa came too.

That evening, Victor gave Elena the suite that had belonged to her mother, Isabella. The room had remained untouched: pale blue walls, a dressing table, and family photographs carefully preserved beneath glass.

Elena found a portrait of Isabella holding an infant.

The baby wore the silver bracelet and locket.

Her knees weakened.

Rosa stood behind her. “You have her eyes.”

Elena turned and embraced the woman who had raised her.

Across the hall, Noah began crying.

Elena heard Celeste’s tired voice, followed by the nursery door closing. A few minutes later, silence returned.

Then Elena noticed a small green light beneath the molding outside the nursery.

A hidden camera.

Victor’s security chief, Marcus Hale, removed the device. It had been installed inside a decorative sensor and transmitted to an external server.

They reviewed the footage.

The camera had recorded Celeste alone in the nursery earlier that afternoon. She placed Noah safely in his crib, then opened a wall safe hidden behind a painting.

Inside were files bearing Victor’s signature.

Grant Mercer entered the room ten minutes later.

On the recording, Celeste whispered, “The DNA result changed everything.”

Grant replied, “Only if the original survives.”

He removed a sealed envelope from the safe.

Victor stared at the screen. “Original what?”

Celeste’s face went white.

Marcus checked the transmission log. The camera had been installed months before Elena came to work at the estate.

Someone had been watching the nursery long before the heir was revealed.

Then the footage showed Grant handing Celeste a second document.

Even without readable text, Victor recognized the blue ribbon attached to it.

“My will,” he said.

Grant had not only hidden evidence.

He had prepared a replacement.