Chapter 2 - Three Clicks, Seven Seconds
I pulled the router cable from the dining-room wall.
Colin cursed.
“Adrian.”
“What?”
“You just took the house network down.”
“Good.”
Mother stood.
“You’re behaving irrationally.”
I looked at Emily.
“Where’s your phone?”
Lauren answered first.
“Upstairs.”
“Get it.”
She did not move.
“Now.”
Daniel pushed back his chair.
“You don’t order everybody around because you got scared by a webpage.”
I turned.
“You took my wife’s phone.”
“I didn’t.”
“Who did?”
No answer.
Emily said:
“Lauren took it from the kitchen counter.”
Lauren’s face tightened.
“Because you kept calling strangers.”
“I was calling my husband.”
“You were calling Jonah.”
“I called both.”
I looked at Lauren.
“Phone.”
She walked out.
Slow enough to make disobedience look like dignity.
I let her have the theater.
The ice machine clicked.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Silence.
Seven seconds.
The router lights stayed dead because I had unplugged it.
But the small service panel beside the pantry went dark anyway.
Interesting.
Then back on.
Not the house router.
Something else.
Emily saw me watching.
“That’s what I wanted to show Jonah.”
“The ice machine?”
“The sound.”
“Why?”
“It happens before messages disappear.”
My skin tightened.
“What messages?”
“The ones I send you.”
I looked at her.
She rubbed the raw edge of one thumb against the other.
“I started writing down times.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did.”
She stopped.
Corrected herself.
“I thought I did.”
That hurt.
Lauren returned with the phone.
She placed it on the table.
Not handed.
Placed.
A power move so small she probably thought nobody noticed.
Emily picked it up.
Dead battery.
I asked:
“When did you last charge it?”
“Yesterday.”
Colin spoke.
“Phones die.”
Emily looked at him.
“Not from eighty percent.”
I turned to him.
“You said don’t open Jonah’s link on the house network.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t know what it is.”
“How did you know it was network-sensitive?”
“It said diagnostic.”
“No. You said house network.”
His jaw tightened.
Good.
I took Emily’s phone and connected it to a battery pack from my travel bag.
It powered.
No service.
Not airplane mode.
No SIM.
I removed the tray.
Empty.
Lauren crossed her arms.
“It fell out.”
I stared.
She looked away first.
Then I checked call history.
Several calls to me.
All marked connected.
Durations:
four minutes.
nine minutes.
eleven minutes.
I had not spoken to her on those dates.
Not once.
My mouth went dry.
“What is this?”
Emily leaned over.
“They answered.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did they say?”
“Sometimes nothing.”
She swallowed.
“Sometimes your assistant said you were unavailable.”
“My assistant?”
“Sometimes a man said you were in a meeting.”
I had no male assistant.
I scrolled.
Outgoing calls to my number.
Connected.
Incoming return calls from my number.
Also connected.
But on my phone?
Nothing.
No matching records.
Colin stood.
“This proves nothing without carrier logs.”
I looked at him.
“You’re right.”
He stopped.
He had expected anger.
I continued:
“So we’ll get carrier logs.”
His face changed.
Small.
There.
Mother said:
“You’re turning your home into a police station.”
“No.”
I looked at Emily’s phone.
“Someone else already did.”
I asked her for the notebook where she wrote the times.
She pointed toward the service kitchen.
“Behind the flour bins.”
We went together.
Not alone.
I had my head of security, Marcus Bell, come inside from the driveway.
Different Marcus.
Living.
Trusted for now.
I told him:
“No family member leaves.”
Daniel laughed from behind us.
“Kidnapping now?”
“You can leave.”
He stopped smiling.
“But your cars stay.”
That bought silence.
In the service kitchen, Emily pulled a grease-stained notebook from behind a fifty-pound flour bin.
Dates.
Times.
Short notes.
2:17 a.m. - 3 clicks / phone locked itself.
4:03 p.m. - 3 clicks / front door denied.
11:41 a.m. - 3 clicks / message to Adrian vanished.
The pattern repeated.
Three clicks.
Seven-second silence.
Then something changed.
Door.
Message.
Camera.
Thermostat.
Intercom.
Not random.
I crouched beside the ice machine.
Old stainless box.
Installed before the house renovation.
I remembered complaining it was too loud.
Father had insisted we keep it.
“Commercial equipment lasts.”
I almost laughed.
I opened the lower service panel.
Dust.
Water line.
Compressor.
Then a wire that did not belong.
Thin black cable disappearing into the wall.
Marcus crouched beside me.
“That isn’t refrigeration.”
“What is it?”
“Ethernet.”
Colin appeared in the doorway.
“Don’t touch that.”
Everybody froze.
I looked over my shoulder.
“Why?”
“It’s building control.”
“Why is building control inside an ice machine?”
“Old retrofit.”
“Who installed it?”
He said nothing.
Marcus unplugged the cable.
The kitchen lights flickered.
Then every smart lock in the house clicked at once.
Front door.
Wine room.
Office.
Service hall.
Emily flinched.
I stood.
“Put it back.”
Marcus did.
The locks settled.
A tiny device behind the compressor blinked green.
Label:
SERVICE RELAY SR-7.
Below it:
GHST NODE.
My stomach tightened.
Same prefix as Jonah’s page.
Marcus connected a clean laptop directly to the relay.
No house Wi-Fi.
The device asked for service credentials.
Emily opened her notebook.
“Try 217.”
I looked.
“Why?”
“The clicks always happen around seventeen minutes after the hour.”
Marcus entered 0217.
Denied.
Then Emily said:
“Three seven.”
He tried 0307.
Denied.
I remembered the exact pattern.
Three clicks.
Seven seconds.
“030007.”
Marcus typed.
Access granted.
Nobody spoke.
The dashboard opened.
House routing.
Door control.
Camera buffers.
VoIP mirror.
Message queue.
I felt my stomach turn.
My home had a second nervous system.
And I did not own it.
Marcus clicked communication logs.
Emily’s calls.
Mirrored.
Some diverted to an internal extension.
SERVICE DESK.
User:
L.MERCER.
Lauren.
Her face went white.
Daniel stepped back.
I looked at her.
“You answered my wife’s calls?”
“Not all.”
The stupidity of the defense stunned me.
Emily whispered:
“How many?”
Lauren looked at the floor.
I turned back to the screen.
Outgoing messages.
Many marked HOLD.
Some marked ALTER.
Alter?
I opened one.
Emily to me:
I need you to call me privately. Something is wrong.
Delivered copy stored by relay:
Hope meetings are going well. I’m fine here. Love you.
My hands went numb.
They had not only blocked her.
They rewrote her.
I looked at Mother.
She did not look surprised.
That was worse than guilt.
Then Marcus found camera routing.
Every time the relay synced, seven seconds of local device activity buffered offline.
A blind spot.
Automatic.
Emily whispered:
“That’s why I wrote notes then.”
She had been living inside seven-second windows.
I wanted to break the relay.
Did not.
Evidence.
Marcus copied logs.
Then a new diagnostic appeared.
GHST-14.
Live feed available.
I clicked.
Dark warehouse.
One emergency light.
Concrete floor.
A man lying near a desk.
Jonah.
I knew him from the photographs.
Blood along one side of his face.
Not moving.
Emily grabbed my arm.
Then someone stepped into frame.
Only legs visible.
Dark pants.
Polished shoes.
The person stopped beside Jonah.
Bent down.
May you like
And reached for his throat.
CUT.
