Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17
ELENA
E lena’s fingers wrapped tightly around the camera she’d shoved into her pocket when the voice had startled them. With wide eyes, she glanced into the hall, finding an older woman staring at them with her hands on her hips.
“Hello,” she said with a sweet smile. “I hope we haven’t disturbed you.”
“What you’re disturbing is a crime scene,” the woman snapped.
Elena’s gaze fell to the outline on the floor with a wince. “Right.”
“I suppose you’re curiosity seekers. Well, I’m calling the police.” The woman withdrew a cell phone from her pocket with a shake of her head.
“No, no,” Elena said with a shake of her head. “No, we’re not…curiosity seekers. We are…friends of the deceased. I am here for…photographs. For her funeral. I thought she’d had a few of all of us together that would be nicely displayed as a testament to her life.”
The woman’s eyebrows crinkled as she hesitated, her phone still in hand as she studied Elena. “Don’t recognize you.”
“Oh, well, perhaps you would recognize my fiancé. I’m marrying Chloe’s brother-in-law.” Elena held up a finger before she dove into her purse for her phone. After a moment of fiddling with shaky hands, she displayed a picture of her with Nate.
“Oh, yeah. Wait, wasn’t he dating Chloe?”
“Well, he was, but then he wasn’t. And now he’s engaged to me, and she is…well, was, married to his brother. It’s very complicated.”
“No kidding. Well, I’m not surprised with her. She always had someone coming and going.”
“Yes, she was very popular.”
The woman rolled her eyes. “Very popular with the men, if you know what I mean. She constantly had some male visitor popping in and out. To be honest, I’m surprised she saddled herself with a husband. She seemed to be a real party girl.”
“I know what you mean,” Elena said with a bob of her head. “Well, sadly, she’ll never have the opportunity to be anything different.”
The woman sucked in a breath and bobbed her head. “Yeah, you’re right. Shame, being cut down so young like that.”
“Yes, very,” Elena said with a nod, her stomach still in a tight knot.
“Well,” the woman said with a deep inhale, “I’m not sure you gals should be in there.”
“You know, I think you’re right. It’s probably not appropriate for us to be here. We’ll have to forego the pictures. Come along, ladies.” Elena waved for them to follow her as she ducked underneath the police tape again.
“Very sorry to have disturbed you, Ms., uh…”
“Riley. Mrs. Riley. Well, Ms. My husband’s long since dead.”
Elena offered her a warm smile. “Mrs. Riley, so sorry to have disturbed you. We’ll be on our way now.”
“Yeah, no problem. And, uh, sorry for your loss, ladies.”
“Thank you.” Elena offered another polite smile before she hurried to the elevator and pressed the button. The woman lingered, her eyes narrowed at them for another moment before she wandered down the hall, glancing over her shoulder every few steps.
Elena’s heart pounded as she tapped the elevator button. “Come on,” she murmured.
“Easy, Your Highness,” Caroline hissed, her lips barely moving, “you do not wish to appear nervous.”
The doors whooshed open, and they spilled into the car. Elena quickly pressed the button for the lobby. She puffed out a sigh of relief as the doors closed. “Thank heavens. That was too close of a call.”
“You got the camera, though, right?” Maddie asked.
Elena dug into her pocket and waved it in the air. “Yes. Now, how can we see anything from it?”
Maddie took it from her and studied it. “Uh…looks like we’ll need a cord or something.”
“Oh, blast. The cord is likely in her apartment. We cannot go back there.”
“No, we’ll have to try to find one or buy one,” Maddie said.
“We should do that before we go back,” Elena answered as the doors opened in front of them. They hurried into the lobby and raced past the guard into the fresh air outside.
Elena gulped in breaths of it. “Freedom. ”
“Do you know of a store where we could buy one of these cords?” Caroline asked Maddie as they rushed around the corner to the car.
“Yeah.” Maddie tapped on the GPS screen after consulting her phone. The directions populated, and she fired the engine.
Within a few minutes, they’d arrived at the shopping district.
Maddie pulled into the parking lot and killed the engine. “It’s on the corner.”
They climbed from the car and made the short trip from the centrally located parking area to the corner shop.
Elena burst into the store and hurried to the cashier. “I need a cord.”
The young man ran a hand through his curly hair. “Okay? Like what kind of cord?”
“For this.” Elena held up the camera. “I want to see what’s on it.”
“Umm, okay.”
Elena crinkled her brow. “Well, can you help me?”
“I need to actually see the camera to know what cord you need.”
“Oh.” Elena glanced at it, unwilling to let it go even for the brief second it would take for him to assess it. “Uh…”
Elena held it flat in her palm, her heart skipping a beat as the man lifted to gawk at it. “Careful.”
He offered her a glare. “Chill, lady. I’m not going to drop it. Looks like you need a USB-C.”
He handed the camera back to her before he wandered from behind the counter, waving for them to follow him.
They hurried through the aisles, finding him pulling a package from a hanger. “This should do it.”
“And this will connect this camera to any laptop,” Elena asked .
“It should.”
Elena’s eyebrows furrowed. “Should or will?”
“Should. You can return it if it doesn’t work.”
“I don’t want to return it. I want it to work.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Do you want this or not?”
Elena snatched it from his hand with a frown. “We’ll take it.”
They returned to the counter, paid for the purchase, and left the store behind.
“I certainly hope this works,” Elena said with a sigh as they hurried back to the car. “He didn’t seem…certain.”
“It should,” Maddie said with a shrug as they settled in the car.
She fired the engine and aimed for her house. Elena drummed her fingers against her thigh as they made their way back. This time, she didn’t mind Maddie’s excessive speed.
They arrived in one piece and scurried into the mansion, finding the house in turmoil.
“What’s happened?” Elena asked Caroline.
Maddie stopped one of the maids who hurried past them. “Hey, what’s going on?”
The woman wrung her hands, her lips curling into a grimace. “It’s your mother, Miss Maddie.”
“What about her?” Maddie’s features blanched.
The woman’s features twisted with upset. “She’s been arrested.”
“What?” Maddie’s voice came out breathy as tears brimmed in her eyes. She shifted her gaze to Elena before her knees buckled.
Elena and Caroline rushed to grab her and steady her before she slumped to the floor.
“Oh, no,” Elena murmured. “That’s terrible.”
“Ellie…” Maddie cried. “What are we going do to? ”
Elena firmed her jaw. “We’re going to see if the camera has any evidence on it. And if it does, we’ll present it to the police. And if it doesn’t, we’ll at least present that the back door could have been open, and someone else may have slipped inside.”
Maddie’s lower lip quivered as she nodded. “Yeah.”
“Come along, Maddie, there is work to be done. Now is not the time to fall apart.”
Caroline kept an arm firmly around Maddie as she guided her upstairs. They snaked through the halls to Maddie’s room.
Elena pulled a pair of scissors from the pencil cup on Maddie’s desk and tore into the package, freeing the cord while Maddie retrieved her laptop.
“Okay,” the teen said, blowing out a shaky breath. “Put the big end in here, and the little end in the camera.”
Elena stuck the smaller silver prong into the camera and the larger one into Maddie’s laptop. She stared at the screen, her pulse quickening. “It’s not working. Nothing is happening.”
“We probably need to turn it on,” Maddie said as she fiddled with the camera, searching for a button.
She pressed a tiny black spot on the camera, flicked her gaze to the screen.
“Oh, no,” Elena said with a wrinkled nose. “Is it broken?”
Maddie pressed her lips together into a thin line as she mashed her finger onto the button and held it. A green light popped on, and a new window opened on her laptop.
Elena’s heart skipped a beat. “There.”
Maddie set the camera aside and flicked her finger against her mousepad. She clicked a few buttons before a sideways image of Elena appeared on the screen.
“There, you’ve done it.” Elena twisted the camera with a grin and a wave .
“Yeah, ummm…” Maddie glanced at the camera. “It’s showing you now, but…what about the stuff it already recorded?”
Maddie tapped around on her screen for a minute before she shook her head. “Dang it.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know how to get to the stored stuff. Maybe it’s in a cloud.”
“How do we get to the cloud?” Elena questioned.
“I don’t know. Like there may be some website that Chloe logged into to see her videos. But…I have no idea where it could be or what her login is.”
Elena collapsed onto the bed with a sigh. “Oh, no. Well, I wonder if the camera itself is enough to help your mother. Perhaps we should take it to the police. Maybe they would know.”
“But what if nothing is on it.” Maddie twisted to face her, a tear falling to her cheek. “What if it shows my mom…”
Elena leapt to her feet and threw her arms around the girl. “Oh, darling, I’m certain it doesn’t, though I do understand. Perhaps we can still figure out how to see this. Can we…search for the make or something?”
“Excellent idea, Your Highness.” Caroline shifted the laptop toward her and tapped on it. “I spotted these letters and numbers earlier, and I wonder if they are a model. I’ll search it along with the make.”
“Anything?” Elena asked as she stroked Maddie’s hair.
“Here, I’ve found it. I’m looking for an instruction manual.”
Elena held her breath, waiting as Caroline scanned the screen in search of what she sought.
“Got it!” Caroline exclaimed with a grin. “I’m downloading it now.”
After a few seconds, the document appeared in the downloads list, and Caroline selected it to open. “Okay, setup information…”
“No, keep going,” Elena said.
“Troubleshooting.” Caroline shook her head. “Here…retrieving your videos.”
“What does it say?” Elena asked, her heart pounding.
“Uh, your camera will automatically record when it senses movement lasting longer than two seconds. Blah, blah. Here…connect the camera to your laptop, navigate to the drive marked F to find the videos.”
Maddie sniffled and spun back to the computer. “Here, I can find that.”
“Oh, good,” Caroline answered, straightening as they watched Maddie navigate to the appropriate location.
“Here.” She sniffled again, wiping at her cheeks as a list of folders popped up on the screen.
Elena leaned forward and squinted at the screen. “Looks like they’re arranged by date.”
“Yeah.” Maddie scrolled through the list in search of the correct date. She found it and opened it, finding numerous videos. “Should I just start with the first one?”
“No, wait,” Elena said with a shake of her head. “Time of death was after midnight. It should be on the next day.”
“Right,” Maddie said with a nod, backtracking to get to the correct folder. “I’ll just play the first one.”
She toggled on the video.
“I hope we don’t see anything we shouldn’t,” Caroline said as they waited for it to load.
Elena drummed her fingers against her arm. The video popped up, showing Victoria Kingsley engaged in a heated conversation with Chloe.
“Oh dear, perhaps you ought to look away, Maddie.”
Maddie stared at the screen, shaking her head. “No, I have to see this. ”
The women argued for a few more moments before Victoria threatened Chloe, telling her to leave her family alone and stormed from the apartment.
Elena blew out a sigh of relief. “Thank heavens. There…proof she did not do it.”
“Unless she went back. She was pretty mad at the end there,” Maddie said.
“Go to the next video,” Caroline instructed.
Maddie clicked on the next one, finding a short clip of Chloe walking to her couch. She moved to the next one and played it.
The women leaned forward, watching the action on the screen. Elena gasped as the video continued, her eyes wide. She glanced at Caroline. “I think we just witnessed a murder.”
She flicked her gaze back to the hooded figure on the screen, wondering if this would be enough proof to clear Victoria Kingsley.