Confessions of a Murder Suspect

78

I locked the lab up tight and returned to the living room, where I had done the six hours of straight reading noted in the journal. I had no other starting points, and besides, it was nice to just sit next to Robert and think sometimes.

I leaned back in the chair and pretended to read a book. I turned my head slightly to the left, and then to the right, to see from what places in the room someone could have been watching me, unnoticed. I’m always very aware of my surroundings, so it disturbed me that someone could have been close by without my knowing it. But when I looked around the room more closely, I saw that there were plenty of places where a person could stand unnoticed behind a giant sculpture, or even hide behind an open door. It just seemed so… cliché, like something right out of a bargain-bookcase mystery. Still, I had to admit that it was possible, and very probable, that someone had consistently observed me in the room that day without my notice.

That’s when it hit me: No one needed to be in the room to spy on me. My parents were highly equipped for any task. They had money, technology, staff. And Malcolm was a scientist.

I jumped out of my chair and started scanning the surrounding walls, my heart pounding so hard I felt almost light-headed.

I was running my hands over the molding above Robert’s TV when I noticed something that just didn’t look right. Sure enough, there was a tiny glint like a winking eye in one of the rosettes carved into the wood. It was almost invisible—unless you were staring right at it.

Which I was doing. Of course, maybe I was just seeing things.…

By that point my heart had started galloping—a very uncomfortable feeling. I dragged my chair over to the wall, climbed up on it, and got as close as I could to the little glass object above me. I stood there long enough to absorb what my eyes were telling me.

I was staring up at a tiny hidden camera.

I went and ransacked the drawers in the kitchen until I found a screwdriver. Then I went back to the chair, under the glinting camera lens. It was only glued on, so it was easy for me to pry out even while standing on tiptoe.

I studied the little gizmo, which was the size of a shirt button. It was wireless.

It was incredible.

It was scandalous.

This lens could mean only one thing: My parents had been spying on me. They’d used my cell phone to track me when they’d ambushed my escape. There was no reason to believe they weren’t filming me, too. All of us.

We were experiments, after all. Scientists need to observe their experiments as much as possible to compile comprehensive data. The facts you glean from dinner conversation just aren’t enough.

I suspected that the data on every move my siblings and I had made—perhaps as long as we’d been alive—was hidden somewhere in this apartment.

With a surge of anger, I threw the tiny camera as hard as I could against the wall. I hated it with a passion. I wouldn’t rest until I had destroyed every hidden camera in the apartment.

I paced in circles for a minute, trying to get myself under control. My heart felt like it might burst, so I took deep, calming breaths. At least no one had been in the room with me when I was reading that day. Cameras weren’t any better, of course, but maybe I could rest slightly easier knowing that I had leapt to a conclusion about Samantha physically spying—

My pacing halted when it hit me like a brick that I might have been onto something the first time. After all, who was the expert with cameras in the apartment?

Samantha.

My heart sank. Could Samantha have been helping with my parents’ experiments? I suddenly realized how naïve it was of me to think it could have been any other way. She spent more time with us than either Malcolm or Maud. She had scores—maybe hundreds—of files of photos of us. And family videos.

So what about hidden videos?

It might be possible that she wasn’t just Maud’s personal assistant. She could have been our parents’ lab assistant, too.