by Barbara Gee
My mind scrambled for an explanation. Maybe…..maybe the cameras were old and not even meant for me. Maybe the last owner had installed them and forgotten to mention it when I bought the place.
I liked that theory. I wanted to latch on to it. The problem was, that whole room had been extensively redone when it was made into my panic room. If the cameras had been there then, they would have been found.
Ugh. Much as I hated to believe it, they had to have been installed after I moved in. But when, and by whom?
I didn’t want to give in to panic, so I concentrated on taking slow, steady breaths as I tried to calm down and think things through rationally. It wasn’t easy. What if there were more cameras? In my bedroom. In the bathroom. What if some…..voyeur…..had been sitting in front of a monitor watching my every move?
My stomach bottomed out. Sex tapes weren’t a threat, thank goodness, as I’d never had a man in my bedroom. But obviously I’d gotten naked in there. And who wanted someone watching them in the bathroom? It was a horrifying prospect.
“Hey, Ava, you coming out?”
Jude’s voice came from the French doors off the kitchen, but I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I just kept staring outside, wondering and fearing what Harv Grayson was going to tell me when he called back.
I heard Jude’s footsteps as he moved across the shiny new floor. I gripped my upper arms to stop my hands from shaking.
“Ava?” He stopped behind me. “You okay?”
I shook my head slowly, tears stinging my eyes at the concern in his voice. He put a hand on my shoulder and gently turned me to face him.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked softly, his brows drawing together. “Was the call bad news? Is your family okay?”
I saw the worry in his eyes and nodded quickly. “It’s nothing like that. Everyone’s okay,” I assured him. “I just—I got some really strange news, and I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what’s going on, but….no…. no one’s hurt or anything.”
He ran his hands up and down my arms. “Can you tell me what the news was?”
I swallowed hard and nodded again. I wanted to tell him. I needed to.
“The phone call. It was from the guy who’s in charge of the crew packing up all my equipment. He said they found—”
I couldn’t bring myself to say it. It sounded too unbelievable for words. Jude looked concerned, but he waited patiently while I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“He said they found cameras, hidden cameras, in the ceiling of the office in my condo. The ones that use little tiny holes that you don’t notice. There were three of them.” I shook my head as Jude’s eyes narrowed in disbelief. “I don’t know why. I don’t know who would’ve put them there. And I don’t know if there are more….in other rooms. The guy is checking.”
Putting that fear into words made me shudder all over again.
“Geez, Ava.” Jude put his hands on my shoulders. “I can’t even—are you sure they weren’t there when you bought it?”
“Yeah. I had a lot of work done to that room when I moved in. If there were cameras there then, they would’ve been found.”
“Is there any way to track them? Find out where the signal’s going or something? Would that lead to who’s watching?”
I seized on that idea because it gave me something different to think about. Something other than being secretly watched in my own home.
“It depends on the cameras,” I said thoughtfully. “I assume they’re motion activated with the video going to a recording device, but I should’ve asked what kind of cameras they are. Then I’d know if the feed can be accessed live as well.” I let out a groan. “I should’ve asked a lot more questions, but I wasn’t thinking. I was too freaked out by the thought of someone watching me inside my house when I had no idea.”
Panic threatened again, and the words spilled out. “Who does that, Jude? Who would go to the trouble? Was it someone I know? It has to be, right? Because why would a stranger choose my house? But I honestly can’t think of a single person I know who would do something like that.”
I stopped rambling when his arms came around me, pulling me against his chest while he rubbed my back soothingly. I released a shaky sigh and leaned into him, feeling his comforting warmth through the smooth fabric of his shirt.
The contact not only shocked me silent, it helped take the edge off. I felt myself growing calmer, and I would’ve stayed in the safe haven of his arms much longer if I wasn’t afraid he’d think I was too needy.
“I’m okay,” I said against his shirt before reluctantly pushing away. He dropped his arms when I stepped back, but the worry on his face remained.
“Tell me exactly what the mover said.”
I repeated our short conversation as accurately as I could, shuddering again when I told him Harv was going to call me back when he found out whether there were more cameras in other rooms.
Jude folded his arms, his expression serious. “Here’s what I’m thinking, Ava. If there are cameras all over the house, you’re dealing with a person who has some kind of a personal obsession with you. Someone who wants to watch you live your life. But if they’re only in the office, it’s more likely a professional espionage thing. Someone who knows you do secret government work and wants to watch you do it. Would you agree?”
I frowned, not liking either option. The first one completely violated my privacy and could go as far as blackmail. Because who wanted naked videos of themselves on the internet for all to see? The second threatened my top-secret clearance. If I found that someone had managed to capture the details of projects I’d worked on, I’d be obligated to report it, and my clearance could be pulled. That would get me kicked off the team and also limit the type of work I could do in the future.
“I guess that seems logical—if anything in this scenario can be logical.” I pressed a hand against my stomach, which was starting to hurt from the tension. “This seems like a bad dream.”
“It does.”
I paced away from him, back to the window. “I just can’t figure out how it happened. My security system went way beyond what was required. I can’t see any way someone could even get into my condo, let alone install a whole surveillance system without leaving a trace.”
I turned to face him. “If the cameras are high resolution and were positioned right, they could definitely see my screens. That’s bad, but I’m not sure which would be worse. Losing my job because of this, or knowing there were cameras all over my house and someone was just—just watching me. Maybe even recording me.”
He ran a hand through his hair and I could tell he was truly hurting for me. “Both possibilities suck, no doubt about that,” he said gently. “I’m so sorry.”
My throat went tight with emotion and regret. “I’m sorry, too.” I barely managed to get the words out. “I wanted to be a fun date today. Not a basket case with stalker problems.”
His lips curved up slightly. “You are a fun date. And your stalker problems aren’t going to scare me off. I’ll do whatever I can to help, but you’ll have to tell me what you need.”
I smiled gratefully. “Having someone to talk to is the biggest thing right now. I can’t tell my family—they’d go ballistic and lock me up in their house to keep me safe. And I can’t tell anyone else I know, because they could be the ones who put the cameras in.”
“You can always talk to me, Ava, and you can trust me. All I want to do is help.”
“I do trust you,” I told him, silently thanking the good Lord for bringing Jude into my life when He did.
“You also need to trust me when I say you’re going to get through this. We’ll get to the bottom of it and we’ll deal with it, then you can move on.”
I opened my mouth to thank him, but my phone rang before I got the words out. My heart began to race and my hand shook as I pulled my phone from my purse.
Which was it? A professional intrusion, or a personal one?
Chapter 11
Iswiped the screen to answer the call, then put it on speaker phone. Jude might as well hear it all right from Harv because I’d tell him about it anyway.
A few minutes later I hung up. Jude put his arm around me and walked me out to the front porch where there were chairs. I sank into one, grateful when he pulled his own chair close, facing me, and took hold of my hands.
“So,” he said, dipping his head to catch my gaze. “There won’t be any videos of you taking a bath hitting the internet after all.”
I closed my eyes and let my head fall back against the chair. “Thank God. I’m not sure how I would’ve handled that.”
“I’m glad that’s not a worry.”
“Me too. Now I just have to figure out who wanted to spy on me while I worked.”
We didn’t have much to go on. According to Harv, the only cameras were the three in the office ceiling. They’d been hard-wired into an electrical outlet for power and also connected to a DVR device hidden behind a panel at the bottom of the closet in the guest bedroom, directly above the office. The cable to that had been stuffed between the baseboard and carpet, making it virtually invisible unless you were looking for it.
One of Harv’s guys had done a quick inspection of the DVR. It could save a hundred hours of video before overwriting content. It could also be accessed remotely by simply tapping into the IP address. That meant the watcher could view the video live, play back saved files later, splice clips together and save them in one file, and even export selected files.
Harv also reported that there was an external hard drive attached to a USB port in the recorder, indicating that the user had indeed exported files. Reasons for doing that could be to either convert the files into a format that didn’t require a special viewer, or to simply to save them from being overwritten.
It sounded like a pretty sophisticated setup, and I was all too aware that high resolution video could be played back in super slow motion, frame by frame, which meant it was conceivable the watcher had been able to follow my work keystroke by keystroke on my monitors.
The thought made me sick, but Jude kept me focused.
“How would someone have gotten access to your house for long enough to install those cameras? Harv said they were in between the floor joists of the bedroom above the office, which means someone had to cut holes in the carpet and the subfloor. Then they had to drill those little sight holes and mount the cameras. And they had to take apart the outlet and hide the power source behind the cover, and then do the wiring to hook up the cameras to the power. Plus, they had to run the cable to the DVR, and put in that false panel in the closet. Not to mention cleaning up the sawdust and sticking the carpet patches back down so carefully you never noticed when you vacuumed.” He squeezed my hands. “It would have taken a while, I’d say four or five hours at least, and probably more than one person. Does anyone have a key to your condo?”
I shook my head. “No, both the front and back doors have keypads instead of keys. I changed the code every week, and I didn’t give it to anyone. The only exception was if I needed someone to water my plants while I went out of town. Which didn’t happen all that often.”
“Who did it for you?”
“My mom usually. Ella once or twice.”
“No one else?”
I gave it some thought. I’d been in the condo for three years, and it was hard to remember every time I’d been gone. “No. I don’t remember giving anyone access except for Mom and Ella. I had a security system, too, so anyone who got in had to know two codes.”
“Would any of your acquaintances have known about a time when your mom was taking care of the plants and come up with a reason for getting her to let them in?”
I shook my head. “Not that I know of. But even if someone got into the condo, there’s no way they could’ve breached my office. It was like a panic room, and the door had a retina scanner in addition to a code.”
“They didn’t need to get in there, though. All they needed was to get upstairs for a few hours when you were gone.”
“Oh. Yeah.” I sighed, hating the implications. “I can ask my mom if she ever gave the codes to anyone, but that means I’ll have to tell her about the cameras.”
“That might be unavoidable if we can’t think of any other way someone could’ve gotten in.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “None of your hacker friends could have patched into your keypad or security system, could they?”
“The security system maybe, but not the keypads on the doors. I had old fashioned, completely manual ones for that very reason.”
His eyes were kind and apologetic, and I knew he hated asking me all these questions. He kept going, though, because it was for my own good.
“I know it’s hard to think about this, but is there anyone you associate with who you don’t completely trust? Anyone at all?”
As soon as he asked, my mind went straight to Ian. I hated that, because we’d been friends and colleagues for so long. True, things had changed after we tried dating, but still, he would have never spied on me—I mean, why would he? If he wanted to know what I was working on, all he had to do was ask. We all regularly shared our breakthroughs and progress with each other, in the interests of doing the best job we could possibly do for our clients. That collaboration was key to helping us win more contracts.
I didn’t answer, and Jude told me to keep thinking about that. Then he raised another good point. “I wonder why whoever it was didn’t remove the cameras and other stuff when they found out you were moving. Maybe they simply couldn’t figure out a way to get back inside.”
“Or they didn’t know I was moving,” I replied. “My family and a couple of friends were the only ones I told. And those friends would have had absolutely no reason to spy on my work.”
“Your team of super-secret geek hackers didn’t know?” Jude asked, trying to make me smile with his description.
His teasing felt good. Made things feel a little less crazy.
I gave him the smile he wanted. “No. I didn’t tell any of them until a few days before I drove here. Before that they knew I was going to be taking a week off work, but not why. We’re mostly all business, you know?” I frowned, thinking of Ian again. “At least, that’s how I’ve tried to keep it. It’s way better not to get personally involved.”
He raised a brow. “Are you speaking from experience?”
I chewed my bottom lip for a moment. “I guess I am,” I said reluctantly. “There’s this one guy, Ian. He’s the one who put the team together, and he’s still ultimately the one in charge. I’ve known him since I was in high school, although we never actually met face-to-face until he hired me three years ago.”
“So….you met online or something?”
I nodded. “In hacker forums.”
Jude grinned, and I could tell he was thinking about my geekiness again.
“Anyway,” I continued, “he and his girlfriend, Abigail, live about an hour from my condo. The rest of the team is scattered around. Two are in Kansas, they’re cousins, one is in New York, and one in Maine.”
“Abigail is part of the team?”
“Yeah. That’s how she and Ian met.”
“Tell me more about Ian.”
I cleared my throat self-consciously. “About two years ago, before he and Abigail got involved, Ian started asking me out. I guess somewhere along the line he developed a personal interest and he was determined to pursue it.”
“You didn’t want it?” Jude asked.
“No, but he was really persuasive. I eventually gave in and we had some dates and hung out for a few weeks, but it just wasn’t there for me. Aside from the hacking hive mind, we’re not at all compatible.”
“Could he be the one behind the cameras?”
I thought about it again, and Jude waited patiently, his fingers warm around mine. Finally, I shook my head.
“If the cameras had been all through the house, then yeah, I might suspect Ian. His pride was really hurt when
I told him I didn’t see him as more than a colleague, and he kept after me for a long time. Apparently, most girls in our circles find him irresistible, and he wasn’t happy that I didn’t.”
“He sounds like a prime suspect to me,” Jude said, his voice hard.
“I’d agree, if there were a lot more cameras. I can see him getting some kind of perverse satisfaction out of watching me in my home when I was completely clueless. But surveilling my office?” I shook my head again. “I can’t think of any reason why he’d do that. He always knows what I’m working on, and I’ve never given him any reason to think I was going rogue or anything. And he’s better at what we do than I am. He doesn’t need to spy on my work to get some kind of professional edge.”
Jude gave my hands a final squeeze, then let go and sat back in his chair. “Okay, so how urgent is the situation, Ava? What’s next? Do we need to bring in some kind of law enforcement?”
My head was throbbing by now, but I knew I had to give that careful consideration. Was it an urgent situation requiring a call to the cops? I didn’t think so. Installing hidden cameras in someone’s house is no doubt a crime, but the damage had already been done. Would it do any good to involve the police now, or would it only cause a lot of hassle I didn’t want to deal with?
“Experienced forensic guys might be able to tap into the DVR device and track down who did it,” Jude said.
I pressed my fingertips against my temples, the ache building. “They couldn’t do anything I can’t. If the person can be traced through that equipment, I can do it myself.”
“Okay, but if Harv removes everything and you start working on it independently, it’ll be harder to bring the cops in later, if you decide you want to. They won’t like not being able to see the original setup for themselves.”
“I know. I honestly don’t think this needs to be a law enforcement situation, though. I don’t want that.”
“I understand, but whoever was spying on you should have to pay. It’s a crime.”