Chapter 5 - The Attic Vault
Flashlight beams swept across the dark basement walls.
"Daniel, they are surrounding the rear entrance!" Sarah.
Her voice was panicked, shaking with sudden terror.
"Follow me to the garage line," I whispered.
We ducked behind the heavy furnace metal unit.
Officer Davis kicked the front door open loudly.
"Search the house! He broke his bail conditions!"
Heavy boots thundered across the floorboards upstairs.
We slipped through the narrow kitchen pantry door.
I opened the hidden attic access panel above.
I pulled myself up into the dark ceiling.
I reached down, pulling Sarah and Miller up.
We pulled the wooden panel shut in darkness.
Footsteps passed directly beneath our feet below us.
"He's not down here!" an officer shouted.
"Check the perimeter backyard woods fast!"
The police ran out the back patio doors.
I let out a quiet breath of relief.
Miller shined his penlight across the attic rafters.
"Why did we come up here, Daniel?"
I walked over to the main air duct.
"Kate smashed the main home router downstairs," I.
"She thought she destroyed all internal camera feeds."
"She didn't know I installed a backup system."
Two years ago, I installed an encrypted server.
A standalone micro-server hidden inside the ductwork.
It ran on an independent solar battery system.
It recorded all hallway and bathroom motion sensors.
I reached deep inside the metal air duct.
My fingers closed around a small metal box.
I pulled the encrypted micro-server drive out carefully.
The tiny green indicator light was still blinking.
"The backup server is intact," I whispered.
Miller's eyes lit up with sudden, immense hope.
"Does it cover the second-floor hallway entrance?"
"It covers the exact doorway of the bathroom."
I plugged the drive into Miller's mobile laptop.
The system requested a twenty-four-digit master key.
I typed my private engineering password into keyboard.
The screen flashed green: ACCESS GRANTED SUCCESSFULLY.
A list of timestamped video files appeared display.
The top file showed today's date stamp:
TWO PM, FORTY-FIVE MINUTES BEFORE THE INCIDENT.
I tapped the play button on screen icon.
The high-definition video feed began playing smoothly.
On screen, Kate walked down the hallway.
She was holding a screaming, crying little Lily.
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Kate's face was completely devoid of all mercy.
📖 Chapter 6 unearths the horrifying video footage that proves Kate's guilt. Follow the story now. 👇
