Chapter 3 - The Ghost of Claire
I carried the triplets back to the house,
nestling them into a temporary nursery in my own bedroom.
The heat was back on,
the generators purring softly beneath the floorboards.
Sophie was breathing easier now,
her fever breaking under the cool cloth I pressed to her head.
As they slept,
I sat on the edge of the bed,
staring at the ruby pendant.
Claire had worn it on our wedding day.
She had told me that as long as the ruby was bright,
our family would be safe.
It felt cold now,
heavy with a weight that shouldn't exist.
I stood up and walked to my wall safe,
hidden behind a landscape painting of the ranch.
I punched in the code,
the numbers familiar and comforting.
The door clicked open.
The interior was empty,
save for a few stacks of documents and Claire’s birth certificate.
The velvet box that held the pendant was gone.
I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the blizzard.
Only two people knew the combination to this safe.
Myself,
and Victor Hale.
He had insisted on having access in case of an emergency while I was traveling.
I had given it to him because he was my brother in everything but blood.
Or so I had thought.
I walked out of the room,
past the guards stationed at the door,
and headed toward the security wing.
The ranch was a fortress,
covered in hundreds of cameras and sensors.
I entered the darkened control room,
the monitors flickering with grey,
static-filled images of the storm.
"Show me the nursery footage from 2:00 a.m.,"
I said to the technician on duty.
The young man shook his head,
his face pale.
"I already checked,
Mr. Whitmore. The system went down during the power surge."
"The recordings from that window were erased."
"Erased?"
I asked,
leaning over his shoulder.
"Or never recorded?"
"Erased,"
he confirmed,
pointing to a string of code on the diagnostic screen.
"Someone manually wiped the hard drives ten minutes ago."
My heart skipped a beat.
Ten minutes ago,
Victor was in the barn with me.
But he wasn't alone.
He had his own team of people,
men he had hired to replace the staff Claire and I had known for years.
I looked at the technician,
a boy I barely knew,
hired by Victor last month.
"Leave the room,"
I said,
my voice flat.
"Sir?"
"Get out,"
I repeated.
Once the door was locked,
I sat in the chair.
I knew something Victor didn't.
When Claire and I built this house,
we were paranoid about the safety of our future children.
I had installed a secondary,
analog backup system.
It was a closed circuit,
wired directly to a hidden recorder in the basement rafters.
It didn't run on the main network.
It didn't show up on the digital diagnostics.
With shaking hands,
I bypassed the main console,
accessing the secret feed.
I rewound the footage,
my breath hitching in my throat.
The screen flickered,
and then a grainy,
black-and-white image appeared.
It was my bedroom.
At 1:45 a.m.,
the door opened.
Victor Hale walked in.
He didn't look like a man in a hurry.
He walked to the safe,
entered the code,
and removed the ruby pendant.
He held it up to the light,
the same way I had in the barn,
a smirk playing on his lips.
Then he walked toward the nursery.
In his right hand,
he wasn't carrying a blanket or a bottle.
He was carrying a long,
glinting syringe.
I watched the screen,
my vision blurring with tears of pure,
unadulterated fury.
May you like
He wasn't trying to save my babies.
He was the one making them sick.
