Chapter 3: What the Camera Remembered
The paramedics were efficient and asked no questions that mattered.
They took Leo's vitals, fitted a small oxygen mask over his face, and loaded him onto the stretcher with the practiced calm of people who had seen worse.
Dr.
Rossi arrived four minutes behind them — a compact man in his sixties with a gray beard and a leather bag that looked older than I was.
He examined Leo in the back of the ambulance while Alessio stood at the open doors and watched.
I stayed on the front steps.
The evidence bag was still in my hand.
When the ambulance pulled away, Alessio turned back toward the house.
He didn't look at me as he passed.
He walked straight to the study at the end of the ground-floor hall, and I followed because no one told me not to.
The study had a single desk, two monitors, and a rack of hard drives along the left wall.
A security console occupied the corner — eight camera feeds tiled across a third screen.
Nursery.
Front gate.
Kitchen.
East corridor.
Garage.
Garden.
Two others I didn't recognize.
The nursery feed was a static image.
The crib.
The changing table.
The window.
Nothing moving.
"How long has it been frozen?" I asked.
Alessio pulled the chair out and sat down.
He clicked through a menu.
A timestamp appeared in the corner of the frozen frame.
1:59 AM.
One minute after I had checked on Leo.
Three minutes before the monitor squeaked.
"Someone paused it," I said.
"Looped it." He pointed at the timestamp.
"It runs from 1:59 to 2:04 on repeat.
The same five minutes.
Over and over."
"Since when?"
"Since 1:58."
He turned to look at me then.
His face had changed since the nursery.
The anger was still there, but it had moved deeper, become something colder and more deliberate.
"Whoever did this knew where the console was," he said.
"Knew the system.
Knew the loop function."
"How many people know this room?"
"Family.
And Ferrante." He paused.
"She's been with us eleven years."
"Where is she now?"
He picked up his phone and called.
It answered on the second ring.
"Mr.
Romano." Mrs.
Ferrante's voice was thick with sleep.
"Were you in the nursery tonight?"
A silence that lasted one second too long.
"No, sir.
I checked on Leo at ten o'clock, as usual.
Then I went to my room."
"Did you hear anything?
After midnight?"
"I heard the ambulance.
I looked out my window.
I didn't know — is he all right?
Is Leo—"
"He's with the doctor." Alessio's voice gave nothing.
"Stay in your room."
He ended the call.
I set the evidence bag on the desk beside the keyboard.
"Your sister," I said.
"What's her name?"
He didn't answer immediately.
He was looking at the frozen nursery feed — the empty crib, the pale blue blanket folded over the rail, the overturned bottle warmer that no one had righted.
"Giada," he said.
"How old?"
"Thirty-one."
"Does she have a key to this room?"
"She has a key to the house."
I looked at the camera rack.
Eight drives.
One per feed.
The nursery drive had a small piece of tape across its indicator light.
Not covering it.
Just touching it.
The kind of mark someone makes to remember which one to find quickly in the dark.
I pointed to it.
Alessio leaned forward.
His jaw tightened again.
"That tape wasn't there yesterday," he said.
"I know."
He stood up slowly.
He was a tall man and the room felt smaller when he straightened.
"I need to find her."
"You need to not touch that drive," I said.
"And you need to call someone who handles evidence.
Not one of your men.
Someone with a chain of custody."
He looked at me the way people look at someone who has just said something obvious in a language they didn't expect to hear.
"You're a nanny," he said.
"I'm a nanny who just saved your son's life and is currently holding the object someone used to try to end it." I set the sealed bag down carefully between us.
"So I'd suggest we keep working together a little longer."
He stared at the bag.
Then at me.
Then he picked up his phone again.
But before he could dial, footsteps sounded in the hallway outside the study door.
Light.
Unhurried.
The footsteps of someone who had decided to stop pretending they were somewhere else.
The door opened.
Giada Romano was tall, dark-haired, and dressed in a silk robe over tailored pajamas.
She looked like she had been awake for hours.
Her eyes went to Alessio first, then to the monitors, then to the evidence bag on the desk.
She didn't ask what it was.
That was the first thing I noticed.
"I heard the ambulance," she said.
"Is Leo all right?"
"Where were you at two in the morning?" Alessio asked.
"In my room."
"Your light was on at two-fifteen."
"I couldn't sleep."
"You tried the nursery door."
Her expression didn't shift.
Not a flinch, not a blink.
Just a very careful stillness that told me she had prepared for this conversation before she walked in.
"I heard something," she said.
"I was worried."
"You tried the handle and walked away without saying a word."
"The door was locked.
I assumed you had it handled."
Alessio took one step toward her.
"Giada."
"Alessio."
"Look at the monitor."
She looked.
The frozen nursery feed.
The timestamp cycling.
1:59.
2:04.
1:59.
2:04.
Something moved across her face.
Gone before I could name it.
"I don't know what that is," she said.
"Someone looped the feed from this room," he said.
"Someone who knew where the console was.
Someone who was in this house tonight."
"There are staff—"
"The tape on the drive, Giada."
Silence.
She looked at the rack.
At the small strip of tape on the nursery drive.
Her chin lifted slightly.
"I want to call my lawyer," she said.
The room went very quiet.
Alessio didn't move.
He stood between her and the door, and the space between them felt like something about to break.
I picked up the evidence bag from the desk and held it where she could see it clearly.
"Before you do," I said, "you should know that this bead has a tool mark on it and a residue I haven't identified yet.
And that I've been documenting this room since I walked in."
Her eyes moved to me for the first time.
They were dark and very still.
"Who are you?" she said.
"The nanny," I said.
"The one who was in the nursery when it mattered."
May you like
Her hand tightened on the door frame.
And for the first time since she had walked in, Giada Romano looked like someone who had made a serious miscalculation.
