Chapter 2 - THE THINGS A CHILD LEARNS TO ASK FOR.
Glen didn’t sleep.
He spent most of the night at the kitchen island with Clara’s tablet in front of him and his phone beside it.
The warehouse camera never came back online.
By 1:00 a.m., Clara had stopped arguing and gone upstairs.
By 2:00, Glen had searched the security application’s help pages.
By 3:00, he had learned something he didn’t like.
The word LIVE did not necessarily mean the image was happening at that exact second.
Some security systems cached the most recent motion segment when a camera lost connection. A poorly configured interface could continue displaying it while the live indicator remained active.
That explained one thing.
It did not explain why the burned warehouse was connected to Clara’s household tablet.
It did not explain why Clara seemed to recognize the possibility of cached footage immediately.
And it did not explain Ariel saying she had seen the same camera the night before.
At 6:14 a.m., Ariel appeared at the kitchen doorway wearing an oversized T-shirt.
She didn’t enter.
“You can come in,” Glen said.
“I know.”
She stayed where she was.
“Are you hungry?”
Ariel nodded.
“There’s cereal.”
She looked toward the staircase.
Glen understood.
“Clara’s asleep.”
Only then did Ariel cross the room.
That hurt him in a way he didn’t have language for.
She climbed onto a stool and waited.
Glen put a bowl in front of her.
Ariel looked at the cabinet.
“Which cereal?”
“Whatever you want.”
“The blue box?”
“Yes.”
“Clara said that one is for guests.”
Glen stopped.
There were four boxes of cereal in the cabinet.
The blue one cost maybe two dollars more.
He took it out.
“It’s cereal, Ariel.”
She watched him pour it.
“Am I in trouble?”
“No.”
“For yesterday.”
“No.”
Ariel lowered her eyes.
“Clara said I wrecked everything.”
“She was angry.”
“She called me disgusting.”
“I heard.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
Glen put the milk down too hard.
A little splashed onto the counter.
Ariel immediately grabbed a paper towel.
“Hey.”
She wiped faster.
“Ariel.”
“I got it.”
“Stop.”
Her hands froze.
“It’s milk.”
She stared at him.
“So?”
“So nothing happens.”
That should have been obvious.
Instead she looked confused.
Glen sat across from her.
“What happens when you spill something?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“If it’s your stuff or Clara’s stuff.”
Something cold moved through him.
“When did she start making you ask before you eat?”
Ariel shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
“Ariel.”
“When her friends come.”
“Why?”
“She says I hover.”
“Hover?”
“She says people don’t want a child hanging around food.”
Glen leaned back.
He remembered a dozen parties.
Ariel disappearing upstairs.
Clara telling him she was tired.
Ariel eating later.
He had accepted every explanation because accepting it was easier than inspecting it.
That was the problem.
Clara came downstairs at seven wearing cream slacks and a sleeveless blouse as if the previous afternoon had never happened.
She stopped when she saw Ariel eating the blue-box cereal.
For half a second, annoyance crossed her face.
Then she looked at Glen.
“We need to talk.”
“We are.”
“Privately.”
“No.”
Ariel stopped chewing.
Clara folded her arms.
“Fine.”
She looked at Ariel.
“What exactly did you see last night?”
Ariel swallowed.
“The building.”
“What building?”
“The burned one.”
“What time?”
“I don’t know.”
“What were you doing with my tablet?”
“I wasn’t.”
Clara gave Glen a look.
Ariel’s voice became smaller.
“It was on the table.”
“Which table?”
“Outside.”
“At night?”
Ariel nodded.
“Why were you outside?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Clara leaned against the counter.
“So you wandered outside without permission, touched an adult device, saw some random video and then invented a story at my party.”
“I didn’t invent it.”
“Clara.”
“What? I’m asking.”
“You’re interrogating her.”
“No. I’m establishing what happened.”
Ariel looked at Glen.
“She does that.”
“Does what?”
“Uses big words when she wants me to be wrong.”
Clara laughed once.
It wasn’t amusement.
“You see what I deal with?”
Glen stared at her.
“No. Actually, I’m starting to.”
The color left her face.
Ariel glanced between them.
Clara pushed away from the counter.
“Apparently I’m the enemy now.”
Nobody said she was.
She left anyway.
The front door shut ten seconds later.
Ariel ate three more spoonfuls.
Then she stopped.
“Is she mad at me?”
“She’s mad at me.”
“Because of me.”
“No.”
Ariel looked unconvinced.
Glen reached for the tablet.
“Show me what you did last night.”
They went outside.
The pool deck looked different without guests.
Smaller.
Less impressive.
The place where Clara’s wine had spilled was perfectly clean.
Ariel walked directly to the sun lounger.
“It was here.”
“The tablet?”
She nodded.
“Was the video already playing?”
“Yes.”
“Did you touch anything?”
“No.”
“Did you see me?”
Ariel hesitated.
“I saw a man.”
“Did you know it was me?”
“Not first.”
“What made you think it was me?”
“Your shirt.”
Glen looked down at the linen shirt hanging over the back of a patio chair.
The same one from the feed.
He had worn it four evenings earlier.
“Anything else?”
“Your watch.”
He rubbed the watch on his wrist.
“Who was the woman?”
Ariel looked at him as though he’d asked a stupid question.
“Clara.”
“You saw her face?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
Ariel touched her own hair.
“She does this.”
She flattened one side behind her ear.
Clara had a habit of doing exactly that.
Small thing.
Maybe.
But Ariel had noticed.
“Did you hear anything?”
“Giggling.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“What about the message?”
Ariel frowned.
“What message?”
“Meet me at the old warehouse.”
“Oh.”
Her expression changed.
“You’ve seen those words before?”
Ariel nodded.
“Where?”
She pointed at the tablet.
“Not yesterday.”
Glen crouched.
“When?”
“A long time ago.”
“How long?”
Ariel considered it.
“Before the Christmas tree.”
That meant at least eight months.
Glen’s stomach tightened.
“What exactly did you see?”
“Old warehouse.”
“On this tablet?”
“Yes.”
“Was there video?”
“No.”
“What was it?”
“Words.”
“A message?”
“I don’t know.”
He pushed.
“What did it say?”
Ariel became irritated.
“I told you.”
“Meet me at the old warehouse?”
She nodded.
“Who sent it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who got it?”
“I don’t know!”
“Okay.”
“I’m not lying.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
The question stopped him.
Ariel folded her arms across her chest.
Glen sat on the edge of the sun lounger.
“I should’ve listened yesterday.”
“You should’ve made her let go.”
He looked at her wrist.
No bruise.
No mark.
That didn’t make him feel better.
“Yes.”
Ariel stared at the pool.
“She doesn’t like when I touch things.”
“Why?”
“She says things here cost money.”
“Everything everywhere costs money.”
“That’s not what she means.”
Glen knew.
Ariel did too.
The difference was that Ariel had stopped pretending not to.
Later that morning Glen took her to a diner in town because he needed space from Clara’s house.
The waitress called Ariel “honey” and gave her three crayons.
Ariel colored the paper kids’ menu while Glen made phone calls.
First to the security company listed inside the tablet app.
They said the account administrator would need to authorize access to detailed logs.
The administrator was Clara.
Second to the manufacturer.
They confirmed cached footage was possible.
Third to a local security technician who had worked on the house months earlier.
The technician’s name was Frank Miles.
Glen left a voicemail.
When breakfast arrived, Ariel stared at the pancakes.
“What?”
“They’re big.”
“That’s good.”
“Can I eat all of them?”
Glen almost laughed.
Then he realized she was serious.
“Yes.”
“Clara says wasting food is rude.”
“She’s right about wasting it.”
Ariel put down her fork.
“I knew it.”
Glen leaned forward.
“You don’t have to finish food just because somebody paid for it.”
Ariel looked at the pancakes.
“Which one is it?”
“What?”
“Don’t waste it or don’t finish it?”
He had no answer good enough for a seven-year-old.
So he told her the simplest truth.
“You eat until you’re not hungry anymore.”
Ariel considered that.
Then she cut a pancake.
Glen’s phone rang.
Frank Miles.
He answered immediately.
“Mr. Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“I got your message about the camera labeled WH-OLD-3.”
Glen straightened.
Ariel stopped coloring.
Frank continued.
“I remember that label.”
“You installed it?”
“No.”
“Then why do you remember it?”
There was a pause.
“Because it wasn’t there when I installed the system.”
Glen looked at Ariel.
“When was it added?”
“I’d have to see the logs.”
“Can you?”
“Not without the administrator.”
“Clara.”
“Yeah.”
Another pause.
Then Frank said, “But I can tell you something else.”
“What?”
“The first time I saw that camera on the tablet was last winter.”
Glen’s eyes went to Ariel.
May you like
Before the Christmas tree.
Exactly what she had said.
