"No dangerous reading appears outside," he said. "It may be false."
Travis shook his head. "The system uses alerts to force people out of rooms."
"Force them where?" June asked.
"Wherever he wants the cameras to see them."
I understood then, in a way that went beyond understanding into something colder, what Aaron had built. He had not built a security system. He had built a house that could direct its occupants. Locks, lights, alarms, thermostats, garage doors, voice assistants. Every connected device I had welcomed into my home because it promised convenience and safety had become part of a remote control system, and the remote was not in my hand. It was in the hand of a man in my attic, and possibly in the hand of someone else entirely.
Helen spoke, and her voice cut through the alarms with a clarity that surprised me. "Turn the array completely off."
The fire chief nodded and moved toward the main solar breaker. He disconnected it with a practiced motion, and for a moment I thought the voice would stop, the alarms would stop, the house would go quiet and ordinary again. But the synthetic voice continued, steady and unhurried, repeating its announcement as if nothing had changed at all.
Travis explained, and I hated the explanation even as I understood it. The attic relay had its own battery. Cutting the solar power did nothing to a device designed to keep transmitting when everything else went dark. Simone asked where the backup was installed, and Travis said the words that had become his shield all morning.
"I don't know."
"You repaired this house four times," Simone said, and her voice had an edge to it now, the patience of an investigator wearing thin.
"I worked on the roof."
"Who worked inside?"
Travis hesitated. I watched his eyes move toward the house, toward the road, toward anywhere but Simone's face, and then he gave a name, quietly, like a man dropping something heavy.
"Leon Voss."
Simone typed it into her tablet, and her expression changed as the results came back. Leon Voss was Meridian Response's vice president of field operations, a former police officer. He had signed the security contracts connected to the three burglarized homes. Simone looked up at Travis.
"Is he inside with Aaron?"
"I don't know."
Helen turned on Travis then, and her voice was sharp with a contempt I had never heard from her before, not on the roof, not in handcuffs, not at any point in the morning. "You always say that after getting paid."
Before Travis could answer, the hallway feed changed. Aaron was no longer alone. Another man entered the frame, large, wearing a gray jacket and work gloves, carrying a compact device with a keypad. Travis whispered, so quietly I almost missed it.
"That's Leon."
Leon grabbed Aaron by the shoulder, and the camera's microphone activated, and suddenly we could hear them, their voices thin and metallic through the tablet speaker but unmistakable.
"You were supposed to remove the relay before the police arrived."
"I told you Helen was monitoring the roof."
"You told us an old woman was confused."
"She's the best signal technician in this county."
Leon pushed Aaron toward Ava's room. "Open the wall."
"There is nothing in there."
"Then why did you schedule the property for tonight?"
"I didn't."
Leon held the keypad device against his chest like a badge. "Your code is on the order."
"My code was copied."
"Convenient."
Leon struck the side of the wall with his fist, a flat, frustrated blow that made the camera shake. "Open it."
I turned to Simone, and my voice came out raw. "What is he looking for in Ava's room?"
Simone checked the property files on her tablet, scrolling through documents I had never seen, files that described my own house in language I did not recognize. One document showed a thermal image of the upstairs wall. Behind Ava's closet was a rectangular space, clearly defined, clearly deliberate, clearly not part of the house I thought I owned.
And then I remembered. Two years earlier, BrightCurrent had sent a crew to install a smart electrical monitor. They said the safest cable path ran through Ava's closet. The work took three hours longer than expected, and I had stood in the hallway listening to the drilling and the muffled voices, telling myself that professionals knew what they were doing. Ava complained afterward that one wall sounded hollow when she knocked on it. I assumed the crew had added a service panel. I never opened it. I never questioned it. I trusted the company, and the company had used my trust to build a hiding place inside my daughter's bedroom.