Chapter 3: The Camera in the Clock

Chapter 3: The Camera in the Clock

The hidden camera was inside an antique wall clock.

My late wife, Elena, had bought it during our first year of marriage. After she died, Lily refused to let me replace it.

I had never known she had hidden a camera inside.

At the hospital, Lily explained everything while a doctor treated the wounds on her knees.

“It started two weeks after you left,” she whispered.

I sat beside her bed, barely able to control my hands.

“What started?”

“Victoria stopped letting me eat dinner with her.”

“Why?”

“She said I looked too much like Mom.”

My throat tightened.

Lily continued.

“At first, she just locked my bedroom door from the outside. Then she started taking my phone. She told the school I was sick so no one would ask questions.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I tried.”

She looked away.

“Your assistant always said you were in meetings.”

My assistant, Daniel Price, had worked for me for nine years.

“He never gave me your messages,” Lily said.

That was the first moment I realized Victoria might not have been acting alone.

The police recovered the camera from the penthouse. Its memory card contained hours of footage.

Victoria screaming at Lily.

Victoria throwing away her meals.

Victoria ordering her to kneel for hours.

Victoria searching Lily’s bedroom.

Then came the most disturbing recording.

Victoria sat at the kitchen table speaking to someone on the phone.

“She still refuses to sign,” she said. “The girl knows the trust fund belongs to her.”

A man’s voice replied through the speaker.

“Then make her desperate enough.”

I recognized the voice immediately.

Daniel.

My assistant.

My friend.

The man who had booked my flights, controlled my schedule, and repeatedly told me Lily was enjoying her summer.

The recording continued.

Victoria lowered her voice.

“Once she signs the medical authorization, we can have her declared unstable.”

“And Robert?” Daniel asked.

“He’ll believe whatever I tell him. He’s barely home.”

Robert.

That was me.

I had spent years building an international company because I wanted Lily to have security.

Instead, my absence had become the weapon they used against her.

The final video showed Victoria placing a stack of documents in front of Lily.

“Sign them,” she ordered.

“No.”

“Your father already chose me.”

“No, he didn’t.”

Victoria leaned close.

“If you disappear, he’ll grieve. Then he’ll move on.”

I stopped the video.

The detective beside me looked grim.

“This is more than child abuse, Mr. Hale.”

“What are you saying?”

“We believe your wife and assistant were trying to seize control of your daughter’s inheritance.”

Lily’s inheritance came from Elena.

It included twenty percent of Hale Global and a trust worth more than eighty million dollars.

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The detective closed his notebook.

“And based on those documents, they may have planned to send Lily somewhere you would never be able to reach her.”