Chapter 1 - Camera OnlineThe wooden stick stopped three feet above eight-year-old Luke Whitmore’s head.
Not because Marlene Pike changed her mind.
Because Emma got between them.
Luke sat crying on the dirt outside Whitmore Ranch’s largest horse barn, both hands pressed against his chest.
He could not call for help.
He had never spoken a word in his life.
Neither had his fifteen-year-old sister.
But Emma did not need a voice to tell Marlene what she meant.
She ran directly between the housemaid and Luke, planted her boots in the dirt, faced Marlene, and raised both hands.
Stop.
Do not touch him.
Marlene’s face twisted.
“Move.”
Emma shook her head.
Behind them, several horses watched from their paddocks.
Marlene lifted the stick again.
Emma did not move.
Then her eyes went upward.
The security camera.
Daniel Whitmore had installed it above the barn entrance two years earlier after expensive tack disappeared.
Normally a tiny red light glowed beneath the lens.
Today it was dark.
Emma followed the cable.
Unplugged.
Her fear changed instantly.
Someone had deliberately disconnected it.
Marlene saw where she was looking.
“No.”
Emma ran.
The loose plug hung beside a wall outlet twenty feet away.
Marlene dropped the stick and chased her.
Emma reached the socket first.
Marlene caught her from behind.
One arm locked around Emma’s upper body and pulled.
Emma stretched desperately forward.
Her fingertips touched the plug.
Marlene dragged harder.
Emma nearly lost her footing.
But she caught the plug.
Turned it.
Aligned it.
And shoved it into the socket.
The camera’s red light came on.
Marlene froze.
Thirty miles away, Daniel Whitmore’s phone vibrated on his office desk.
BARN CAMERA ONLINE.
Daniel frowned.
It should never have been offline.
He opened the notification.
The live feed appeared.
His eight-year-old son was on the ground crying.
His fifteen-year-old daughter was struggling in Marlene’s arms.
A wooden stick lay in the dirt.
Daniel stopped breathing.
Then fury hit.
He slammed one hand on his desk.
“How dare you?!”
His voice traveled through the barn camera’s two-way speaker.
Back at the ranch, Marlene released Emma.
Slowly, she looked upward.
The red light glowed.
Her face drained of color.
Emma’s shoulders dropped.
Luke looked up through tears.
Their father had seen them.
For the first time all afternoon, Emma smiled.
Daniel was already grabbing his truck keys.
He called ranch foreman Cole Vance.
“Get to the barn. Now.”
“What happened?”
“Keep Marlene away from my children.”
Daniel ran outside.
Twenty-nine minutes later, he entered the ranch yard hard enough to throw dust behind his truck.
Emma and Luke were inside the stable office with Cole.
Marlene stood near the house.
She had not left.
Daniel crossed the yard.
“What did you do?”
Marlene looked exhausted rather than frightened now.
“Ask your daughter.”
“My daughter can’t tell me with her voice, and you know it.”
Emma stepped from the office.
She signed rapidly.
Daniel understood enough.
Luke dropped a bucket.
Marlene became angry.
She yelled.
She raised the stick.
Emma interrupted.
Then Emma signed something else.
Camera was unplugged before it happened.
Daniel looked at Marlene.
“You unplugged it?”
Marlene said nothing.
“Marlene.”
She finally answered.
“Yes.”
Daniel went still.
“Why?”
“So you wouldn’t see.”
The bluntness shocked him.
“Pack your things.”
Marlene laughed bitterly.
“You think firing me fixes this?”
“What does that mean?”
She looked toward Emma.
Then Luke.
Something almost like guilt appeared.
“You should ask why that camera has been off twelve other times.”
Daniel frowned.
“What?”
Marlene walked toward the house.
Daniel caught up.
“What twelve times?”
She turned.
“You really don’t know?”
“No.”
A strange expression appeared on her face.
“You own four hundred acres, seventy-three horses, three barns, and a house big enough for people to disappear inside.”
She lowered her voice.
“And you have no idea what has been happening on your own ranch.”
Daniel felt cold.
“What has been happening?”
Marlene looked toward the far breeding barn.
“The camera didn’t start getting unplugged because of Luke.”
“Then why?”
She stepped closer.
“Because your children weren’t the first things someone on this ranch didn’t want you to see.”
Then she walked into the house.
Daniel looked toward the breeding barn.
Emma had followed.
She was watching him.
Slowly, she pointed toward the dark camera.
Then toward the barn.
May you like
And signed one word Daniel understood perfectly.
Horses.
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