Lena bent to get a closer look at the camera. “Shit, that is messed up. You okay, girl?”

I nodded, afraid now that if I opened my mouth to say anything, only a bawl of fear and grief would come out. This house wasn’t safe, it wasn’t. Nowhere was safe. Michael was trying to get answers, and all I could do was fall apart.

She put a hand on my arm and gave it a squeeze. “We’ll figure this out. Brady, y’all install nanny cams and things. What do you think?”

“Looks like it was wireless. A little camera like these can’t transmit very far. But it shouldn’t have been recording. Even the best batteries on something like this won’t last longer than a year.” Brady flipped it over. “I seriously doubt this thing was still active. To be a long-term spy thing, it would have had to be hooked into a power source.”

Lena patted me on the shoulder. “Probably it was just the old man. He always seemed like a total pervert.”

Before I could ask who’d owned the house before him, Michael appeared in the hallway, another camera in the palm of his hand. “Found this one in the master bathroom.”

“Where?” I asked, but he didn’t answer.

Brady took it and held it up to the light. “These aren’t cheap. How many are there?”

“Two at least.” Michael pointed to what looked like a tiny hair sticking off of one corner. “And I’m not sure it wasn’t spliced into the electrical system. Could this be a wire?”

The bathroom was too crowded with people, and our reflections in the mirror made it seem like dozens of people were looking at me, watching me, spying. “Could there be a camera behind the mirror?” I knew it wasn’t a one-way mirror, that was stupid, I knew our study was on the other side of that wall, but my face was getting hotter and my breath was shallow.

“No.” Michael, absorbed in examining the camera he’d found, didn’t even look at me. “We’d see a nonreflective spot.”

“Okay, let’s start checking the rest of the house.” Brady dropped the camera onto the bathroom counter next to its twin. “We’ll do a visual today and a real RF scan tomorrow. I should probably buy a sweeper for the home electronics truck anyway. I can add it as an optional additional service.”

I blinked to settle my eyes, but the LED glare of the lights in the windowless bathroom and the lingering fumes made this seem like a bad dream. I needed a way to make it okay, to solve it. “I’m going to find the packet of manuals and contracts that came with the house. Maybe it was some guy with the alarm company or something.”