Chapter 4 - The Red Light Shifts
The tiny black housing in the chandelier completed its smooth, horizontal rotation and locked into a new position. It was no longer pointing down at the scene of the broken teapot. It was no longer focused on Claire, or the tea cart, or the entrance where Vivian and her guests were exiting toward the terrace.
It was pointed directly at the stone fireplace.
Directly at Marcus.
Marcus was still standing by the hearth, completely oblivious to the ceiling above him. He raised his untouched flute of champagne to his lips, took a slow, bitter sip, and stared out the side window with a look of heavy, exhausted irritation. He believed he was completely alone in his cold annoyance, unobserved now that his mother and her friends had left the room.
As Claire watched from the floor, the microscopic green indicator light inside the camera lens suddenly extinguished.
A second later, a deep, blood-red light ignited in its place.
It wasn't a steady glow. It was a rhythmic, slow pulse—a dark red light that blinked once every second, casting a tiny, crimson reflection onto the surrounding crystal drops of the chandelier.
Claire’s brow furrowed in utter confusion. In surveillance hardware, a solid green light indicated standby or local loop recording. A pulsing red light meant something entirely different: a live, external stream was active. Someone, somewhere outside this room, had just logged into the feed in real-time and taken manual remote control of the camera’s optical tracking.
"Marcus?" Claire’s voice was barely a whisper, thin and raspy from her crying, but in the quiet sunroom, it carried across the marble floor.
Marcus didn't answer immediately. He set his champagne glass down on the marble mantelpiece with a sharp clink, his back still turned to her.
"Get up off the floor, Claire," he said coldly, refusing to turn around. "The housekeepers will clean up the china. Go upstairs, change your dress, and pull yourself together before seven. Mother is already at her limit with you."
"Marcus," Claire repeated, her tone changing completely. The softness, the hesitation, the posture of a beaten wife—it all evaporated. Her voice was flat, hard, and commanding. "Look up."
Irritated by her tone, Marcus turned around slowly, his hands shrugging into his suit jacket pockets. "What are you talking about? Look up at what? If this is another one of your—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
May you like
His eyes followed her pointed gaze up toward the ceiling. He looked past the glass roof, past the iron chains, and locked onto the center column of the Baccarat chandelier.
When Marcus saw the pulsing red light blinking inside the dark lens, his entire posture changed. The arrogant, dismissive slump of his shoulders instantly vanished. His face, usually flushed with the healthy color of wealth and privilege, drained of every drop of blood, turning a sickly, papery white.
