Only Evan and I knew where the spare key was kept.
The front-door lock showed no unusual code entry.
Someone had apparently been inside without using a code, while the kitchen camera was offline for fourteen minutes.
And at 4:18 a.m., in the middle of that missing stretch, the network history recorded a device named EVAN-IP15.
I looked down at the phone in my hand and then back toward the villa.
The morning had begun with a smell of gas. It had led me to cut electrical wires, a burning candle, and a conversation with my husband in which he mentioned something I had never told him about.
Now I had something more concrete than a feeling.
I had a record.
I didn’t know yet what it meant, and I wasn’t going to invent an explanation simply because I was frightened. But I knew the details needed to stay exactly as they were: the time the camera went offline, the time it returned, the device that appeared in the network history, and the missing spare key from the blue bowl.
For the moment, those were the facts I could hold on to.
And as Maya waited with the untouched coffee on the hood of her car, I realized that the gas leak was no longer the only thing I was afraid of.
See more on the next page