Chapter 48 Will This Be Over?
Lara's pov
The police came back at 7am in the morning, not just two officers, different officers came at this time together with the detectives.
They took the photo with them in a plastic evidence bag.
One of the detectives dusted the front door for fingerprints.
"Is there anything else?" the other detective asked.
"Nothing actually. They wore gloves.
I was sitting on the couch with a blanket all around me. I wasn't able to set my eyes on sleep at all.
Damien was making coffee in the kitchen. I wasn't in the right mind to prepare any meal, so Damien had to do that for me.
Ethan hadn't woken up yet, he was still far asleep. Thank God, he didn't need to experience all this.
The detective entered the living room.
"Mrs. Montgomery, can you explain everything that happened to me?"
I told him everything, not a single scene was left unsaid.
The phone calls. The photo. The message written in red.
SOON.
He wrote everything down in his notebook.
"And the security cameras were also disabled right?"
"Yes. For exactly three minutes."
"That's very specific. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing."
That didn't make me feel better at all.
Marcus arrived around 8am, he also looked like he hadn't slept all through the night.
He went straight to the detective. The detective asked for the security footage and Marcus brought out his laptop from his bag and opened the security system.
"Here. This was last night around 2am."
We all watched the screen together.
Everything was normal, cameras showing the front yard,back yard and the driveway.
Until -
At exactly 2:03am the screen went black.
All the cameras went black at the same time. Everyone knew something happened.
"What happened there?" the detective asked.
"Someone shut down the system," Marcus said and the person that shut it down hadn't been known yet, we are still trying to figure it out”.
Marcus typed on his laptop. Pulled up logs and codes I didn't understand.
His face changed as he read.
"What is that?" Damien asked.
"The shutdown command came from inside the house."
My stomach dropped.
“You mean inside this house? How is that even possible?”
"Someone had admin access to the system. They logged in remotely and disabled everything."
"Who has admin access?" the detective asked.
Marcus really looked sick., before he later said."Just me. And... oh no."
"What?"
"When we installed the system yesterday, the tech team needed temporary admin access to set everything up. I gave it to them."
"And what else?"
"I was supposed to revoke it after they finished, but I totally forgot."
The detective leaned forward. "So one of those installers still has access to the system?"
"Yes."
"How many people were on the installation team?"
Marcus checked his phone. "Four people actually did."
"I need their names."
Marcus picked his phone and called some people, he got the names from his office.
Jake Jason. Brian Henry. David Henderson. Sarah Miller.
The detective wrote them all the names down.
"I'll run background checks on all of them, the detector said."
He left to make some calls and also probably find some things.
Marcus kept digging through the computer logs.
"I can see who accessed the system last night," he said.
Ehn…
What did you say?
We all waited for him to show us exactly what he saw.
He clicked through screens and then stopped.
"It was Jake Jason. He logged in at exactly 2:03am, he disabled the cameras,logged in again at 2:06am and turned them back on."
Three minutes was enough time for him to leave the photo.
"Who is Jake Jason?" Damien asked.
“He's a young guy, he's about twenty-three if I'm not mistaken. This was his first job with us actually, my supervisor just hired him last week.”
"Do you have his address?"
“ Yes, I think I do, he lives in one apartment in the city along that popular hotel.”
Damien stood up. "Let's go."
"Damien, we should wait for the police.."
"No. I'm done waiting, I want to talk to this guy now."
The detective came back inside.
Damien told him about Jake Jason.
"We have his address. We're going there now."
"I'll send officers with you."
"Fine.”
The detective looked at me. "Mrs. Montgomery, you should stay here. We'll have an officer remain with you here for your safety."
I nodded. I didn't want to go anyway.
I just wanted to check on Ethan.
They left at exactly 9am.Damien, Marcus, and two police officers.
I went upstairs to Ethan's room to check how he was doing, but he was still sleeping.
I sat down on a chair when my phone buzzed. It was a text from Margaret telling me the news about the sister's arrest.
“Are you okay? She texted.”
I texted back: "No. Someone left a threatening photo at our house last night."
She called immediately.
"What? What kind of photo?"
I told her everything.
"Lara, this is serious. You need to consider getting a restraining order."
"Against who? We don't even know who's doing this."
"Against the sisters. What I'm sure of was that they're clearly behind it."
"We don't have proof yet about it yet."
"You will. And when you do, we'll bury them."
I hoped she was right.
Around 10:30am, Damien called to informed me that they were at the Jake's apartment. But he wasn't there.
“His neighbour said he left yesterday afternoon with two big bags.” he said.
“You mean he has ran away?”
“Something like that, but we're still searching his place with police”
"Be careful, okay?"
"I will. I love you."
"I love you too."
He hung up, staring at the air and honestly, I was tired of the whole thing.
Every time we got close to answers, something went wrong.
I had make sure I kept in touch with Damien to know how the investigation was going. I received a call from him that they found something.
"What is that?"
"Lots of evidences."
"What kind of evidence?"
“We found almost ten thousand dollars hidden in his closet and a text messages on an old phone he left behind, probably he forgot to pick it.”
“Who was he sending texts messages to?”
"Veronica Ward."
My blood went cold.
After everything I've done for this people, after they came to my office to apologize that their lifes were falling apart.
"What do the messages say?", I said.
"She paid him to install the tracking app on your phone, and also to keep admin access to our security system."
"So it was her. It was the sisters all along."
"Yeah. And there's more to it."
"What?"
“They've been taking all your photos for the past few days from outside our house.”
I felt sick of everything. “God, when was everything going to end?”.
"Jake was watching us and sending my photos to Veronica?"
"Yes”.
I was short of words.
"The police are putting out a warrant for Jake's arrest right now. And they're going to bring the sisters in for questioning again."
"Will they go to jail?"
"If we can find Jake and he testifies, yes. But first we need to find him."
I hung up and just sat there.Veronica and Natasha had been terrorizing me all again. So she had been the one calling me and texting me.
All of them.
Why? Just because I left their brother?
Because I was with Damien now?
It didn't make sense.
But then again, nothing about Lucas's family ever made sense to me.
They were all crazy.
Around 2pm, the officer who was guarding me came to check up on me, but he was not the only one, he came with two other detectives.
"Mrs. Montgomery, we have an update."
"What is it?"
"We brought Veronica and Natasha Ward in for questioning and also showed them the evidence from Jake Jason apartment."
"And?"
"They both denied everything. They said they barely know Jake Jason. That he's just a distant relative of Natasha's boyfriend."
"But the text messages—"
"They claim those were faked. That someone is trying to frame them."
I couldn't believe this.
"So they're just going to walk free?"
"For now, yes. We don't have enough to arrest them yet. Just circumstantial evidence. We need Jake Jason to testify."
"And where is he?"
"We don't know for now, but we're looking for him."
They left.
I wanted to scream and shout, but honestly, I couldn't.
Damien came home around 4pm, he was already exhausted. I knew he was tired of everything as well.
"They let the sisters go," I said.
"I know. Marcus already called me."
"So what do we do now?"
“We will wait for them to find Jake,and in the meantime, we stay at alert.”
"I'm so tired of this, Damien. Honestly,I'm so tired of being scared all the time."
He pulled me into his arms.
"I know. I know you are. But we're going to get through this."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because we have to, for Ethan and also for us."
I wanted to believe him.
But I was running out of hope.
That evening, we had dinner as a family. I tried to act normal for the sake of Ethan. He was quite than normal, he definitely knew something was wrong.
"Mommy, when can we go back to our normal life?"
"Soon, baby."
"You always say soon mommy."
He was right., I did always say soon.
But I didn't know when soon would come.
After dinner, I followed him upstairs for him to sleep in his room, after that, I went back downstairs.
Damien was on his laptop doing research about how he was going to find out more about Jake Jason, where he might have gone and how to locate him.
"Any luck?", I said.
"Not yet."
We stayed up late, both of us too worried to sleep.
Around midnight, Damien's phone rang. It was a call from Marcus. He put the phone on speaker
"We found him."
"Jake Jason?"
"Yeah. Police tracked his credit card. He used it at a gas station three hours north of here."
"Are they going after him?"
"Police are on their way now. They should have him in custody within the hour."
Finally. I ghat to hear some good news.
Damien told Marcus to call him after they have him, he promised to do and Damien hung up.
We looked at each other.
Maybe this nightmare was finally ending.Maybe we'd finally get answers.
Maybe we'd finally be safe.
We waited till forever expecting call from Marcus as regards information about Jake.
Then he Marcus finally called back around 2:30am.
"They lost him."
"What?"
"By the time police got to the gas station, he was gone. He paid cash for gas and disappeared."
"How is that possible?"
"He must have known they were tracking his card, used it once to throw them off, and then ditched it."
Damien slammed his fist on the table.
"So we're back to nothing."
“No now, atleast we know he's running. We already know he's scared, what I'm sure of is that, he'll make a mistake eventually”.
But how many more days would we have to wait?
How many more sleepless nights?
How many more threats?
I looked out the window into the darkness.
Someone was out there, watching and also waiting.
And we had no idea when they'd strike next.