Chapter 8 - Unmasking the Routine
While the technicians bagged the dismantled lamp into evidence containers, Detective Hayes led me downstairs to the dining room table. She began laying out a series of questions that forced me to re-evaluate every interaction I had shared with Marcus over the last fourteen months.
"Claire, how did you two meet?" she asked, writing in her notebook.
"At an open house," I whispered, clutching a glass of cold water with both hands. "I was looking to refinance my mortgage. He struck up a conversation, said he worked in home automation and smart security. He offered to look over my contractor bids for free."
"Did he ever ask for your router passwords? Access to your computer? Cloud credentials?"
"He set up our entire home network," I confessed, the sickening realization dawning on me piece by piece. "He said our existing system was outdated and vulnerable to hackers. He installed new access points in every room. He even gave me an app on my phone to monitor the thermostat."
Hayes nodded grimly. She signaled to another officer waiting in the kitchen. "Go into the home office. Seize all hard drives, routers, and external storage units immediately."
Within minutes, the officer returned carrying Marcus’s high-end desktop tower and two external server arrays that had been humming quietly beneath the desk in the guest study.
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"Every routine," I murmured, staring at the blank screen of the computer. "He always insisted on putting her down at exactly eight o'clock. He told me to go take a bath, read a book, relax downstairs. He said he wanted me to have time to rest."
"He wasn't giving you rest, Claire," Hayes said softly. "He was clearing the floor so he could test his connection without interference."
