“Thanks, Alice.” He guided us into her office. Instead of going to the computer on Alice’s desk he went over to the corner and lifted up this secret cubby thing. There was another computer hidden behind the wooden façade.
I stared at Miller and then back at the screen.
He typed in a password and the security footage came up.
I looked back at him. “How did you know the password?” Alice hadn’t just told him. How did he even know to use this hidden computer?
“Because I set it up.”
“What?”
“I have security cameras everywhere, Brooklyn. I figured you knew that. Do you really think I’d let you stay home all day without surveillance?” He clicked a few buttons and then there was a video of the girl that looked like me walking into the restaurant.
But for just a minute I was a little more concerned about the surveillance comment. “You have cameras in our house?”
“No, outside the house.”
“Miller, it’s not your job to watch me all the time anymore.”
“I don’t watch you.” He turned to me. “I’m busy all day here. But yeah, I have an alarm on my phone that will go off if there’s any motion outside our place.”
“So when I go outside to garden…”
“I get an alert, yes.”
“And you click through and see that it’s just me in the garden.”
He sighed. “I don’t understand the issue here.”
“I just told you the issue. It’s not your job to watch me anymore.”
He ran his hand down his face. “I’m not watching you. I’m protecting you and our kid. And I’d set up most of this before you even came back.”
“You put up all these cameras before I moved in?”
“Do you think you’re the only one freaked out about Mr. Pruitt finding us? I used to lie awake at night holding a gun in my hand. The woods make terribly creepy noises in the middle of the night. I kept thinking he’d found me. I was pretty sure I was going crazy without you.”
I knew the noises that the woods made well. I remembered how spooked we’d both been when the deer had woken us up. But it was the last part of what he said that hit me the hardest. That he was going crazy without me. I’d felt that same way without him.
“So yes, I set up cameras to make sure I was safe. And then when you came? I set up a few more. He said he’d kill me if I touched you, Brooklyn. What would he do to me now? You’re pregnant with my kid.”
I swallowed hard. “I’d hope that he wouldn’t hurt the father of my child.”
Miller shook his head. “You’re giving him grace he doesn’t deserve.”
I’d had a lot of time to think about what my father had done to me. I thought about it more than ever now that I was pregnant. Now that I was about to have a kid of my own. My dad swore he thought I’d agreed to the kidney thing. I’d seen the tears in his eyes. I’d seen how grateful he’d been. He’d made a mistake.
But I still resented him. I felt exploited. He made me feel weak. And used. When he kept me a prisoner it twisted things even more. Was he trying to keep me safe from Isabella? Or keeping me safe for himself, just in case he needed me again. I liked to think it was the first one. That he was scared of Isabella too. I hated my father. But now I wasn’t as sure that he was the monster I’d made him out to be in my youth. Or maybe Miller was right. That I was giving him grace he didn’t deserve. That the years apart from him had made me forget who he truly was. Time played tricks on me sometimes. Making me remember the good instead of the bad.
Miller looked over his shoulder at the open door of Alice’s office. “We can discuss this more at home. Let’s see if it was Isabella, okay?”
I didn’t know what to say anymore. Honestly, I was relieved he had cameras set up. But why hadn’t he told me until now? He knew before we had two cars that I was nervous being home alone. He’d even taught me how to use a gun instead of just telling me there were cameras. ‘I figured you knew’ didn’t seem like a good excuse to me. But he was right. We didn’t want Alice to overhear us.
Miller rewound the footage and paused it.
“It’s so blurry.”
He zoomed in a bit more but it didn’t help.
