“Don’t put wet towels in the hamper!” Anita called out. “I told you a thousand times!”

“Sorry, Mom!” Nick shouted from his bedroom. “I forgot!”

“Well, don’t forget!” She finished emptying the hamper and separating clothes into piles on the bathroom floor. Throwing the whites into a laundry basket, she carried them out to the washing machine.

After starting the first load, she returned to clean the bathroom, a chore she’d been putting off for nearly two weeks now. If she and Kyle were more responsible parents, they’d make Nick do it, but he had a big history report due on Monday and needed to spend almost all of his weekend working on that. Maybe next time.

As always, she decided to start by cleaning the toilet. Spraying Lime-A-Way and using the white-bristled scrub brush, Anita scoured the inside of the bowl, using the brush to get under the rim—

—where a small black square attached to a short black wire popped out and into the water.

What was that?

She frowned. Leaning forward and looking closer, she saw what looked like a small circular lens in the center of the square.

Her stomach heaved. Had someone somehow installed a miniature camera in the toilet? Had it been filming her as she…?

Anita felt sick.

Who could have done such a thing? She knew it wasn’t Kyle or Nick, but who else had access to their house? The answer was no one. They didn’t employ a maid, no one had repaired anything recently, none of their friends had been over in the past week or two.

And, access aside, who would even have any incentive to—

Steven.

I’m expanding my business. Getting into home security.

A shiver ran down her spine as she stared at the small black object bobbing in the cloudy blue water. It had to be him. But when could he have done this? And how? She straightened, glanced around. Were there other cameras in the house? Had he snuck in while the three of them were out one day and hidden surveillance equipment in all of the rooms?

Her eyes darted to the corners of the bathroom, to the light in the ceiling, to the wall above the mirror, but she didn’t see anything. She opened the fogged glass door and poked her head in the shower stall. There, in the upper right corner, she saw another small black square with a tiny lens in its center, aimed directly at the spot where her breasts would be if she were showering.

Kyle was at the shop, and even though Nick was home, she wasn’t yet ready to bring this up with him, so she made her own way through the house, looking for additional evidence that she and her family were being spied upon.

She found it.