Chapter 4 - The Remote Access Log
Margaret left me on the courtyard stones and rushed inside.
The moment the door closed behind her, I stopped pretending I was too weak to think.
I was weak.
I was hurt badly enough that every breath had edges.
But I was still conscious, and consciousness was the only advantage Brandon had failed to take from me.
The fountain bubbled beside my head.
The USB remained beneath the grate.
I did not touch it.
If either of them returned and saw my hand near the fountain, it was gone.
Instead I listened.
Voices carried through the open ground-floor doors.
"The archive shows a remote login," Brandon said.
Margaret answered too quietly for me to hear.
"At 3:17," he continued. "Thirty seconds after the impact alert."
Another muffled question.
"I don't know. The account says C.S."
C.S.
Two initials.
Nothing more.
I repeated them silently until they stayed fixed in my mind.
Brandon's voice rose again.
"No, the clip isn't here now. Someone exported it."
My pulse kicked.
An exported clip meant the evidence might already exist somewhere Brandon could not reach.
Unless the person with the initials C.S. was helping him.
That possibility was worse.
I closed my eyes and tried to sort the facts without letting fear turn them into conclusions.
The camera was disabled before I arrived.
An impact event somehow reactivated or triggered the recording.
A remote account logged in thirty seconds later.
The clip was exported.
Brandon did not know by whom.
Margaret had mentioned transfer papers I had never seen.
And both of them were more afraid of the USB than of the fact that I was bleeding in their courtyard.
The villa door opened again.
I let my face go slack.
Margaret came out carrying a linen towel and a glass of water.
The performance would have been almost funny if my side had not hurt so badly.
She knelt beside me and dabbed the corner of my mouth.
"We're going to get you inside."
"Why?"
"Because you're injured."
"You were just looking for the drive."
"Brandon panicked."
"Brandon prepared."
Her hand stopped.
"He turned off the courtyard camera before I got here."
"He turns cameras off all the time."
"For privacy?"
"Exactly."
"Then why did he ask who accessed the archive?"
Her eyes narrowed.
I had let her know I heard too much.
Mistake.
She put the towel down.
"Emma, you are confused from the fall."
"I'm not confused."
"You are going to be."
Her tone was soft enough to make the words colder.
Brandon appeared in the doorway carrying a black tablet from the security room.
He looked at me, then at the fountain.
"I found the access log," he said to Margaret. "C.S. used the guest credential."
"Who has that credential?"
"Only three people."
He tapped the screen.
"Me, the installer, and Caleb Sloan."
The name hit me harder than I expected.
Caleb Sloan had managed paperwork for my father's trust for years before my father died. He was the person whose digital certification appeared on the amendment I had found that afternoon.
The same amendment carrying my forged signature.
I looked at Brandon.
He saw recognition in my face.
So did Margaret.
And suddenly neither of them seemed relieved that the remote user might be someone they knew.
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They looked terrified.
📖 Read why Caleb Sloan's name appears in both the forged trust paperwork and the camera access log—and why that connection frightens Brandon in CHAPTER 5. 👇
