Rachel Thought the Nanny Had Been Near Her Baby’s Crib — Then the Monitor Recorded Someone Hiding in the Camera’s Blind Spot
Chapter 7 — Jasmine Notices Something Else
Jasmine had been cleared immediately.
The footage showed exactly what she said she had done.
But she remembered something detectives had missed.
“The mobile.”
Rachel frowned.
“What about it?”
“It was turned the wrong way.”
The nursery mobile hung above the crib.
Normally the blue elephant faced the doorway.
After Aaron entered, the yellow giraffe faced it instead.
Rachel thought that sounded insignificant.
Jasmine didn’t.
“I fix that mobile ten times a day. Somebody touched it.”
Police reviewed the recording again.
Aaron never approached the crib.
He stayed beside the changing table.
Yet when Jasmine returned after Rachel’s alarm…
the mobile had moved.
Detective Hayes checked earlier footage.
At 1:07 PM, hours before Aaron entered, the camera briefly went offline for forty-three seconds.
When it returned, nothing obvious looked different.
But the mobile orientation had changed.
Somebody had entered earlier.
Someone the camera did not record.
Michael looked toward Aaron.
“Was that you too?”
“No.”
Hayes examined the system log.
The camera had not malfunctioned.
It had been remotely disabled using an administrator credential.
Northstar’s audit system recorded the credential owner.
COLIN WARD.
Rachel went pale.
“He was already inside before Aaron came?”
Hayes shook her head.
“We don’t know that yet.”
Then an exterior camera provided the answer.
At 1:04 PM, a Northstar service van parked two houses away.
A man walked toward Rachel’s property carrying a tool case.
His face was visible for less than a second.
It was Colin.
