Chapter 253

Chapter 253

"So how credible is what he told me?" Audrey asked.

"The first part about Eagle Eye is basically true, but the second half about a mole in the Turner family is probably false."

Ethan paused. "His purpose in giving you that file was likely to mislead you—to redirect your investigation toward the Turner family itself, rather than continuing to pursue Eagle Eye."

Audrey nodded slightly.

This aligned with her instincts. Cameron's invitation to meet, everything about it felt like carefully orchestrated manipulation.

"Then we'll investigate exactly where he's pointing us."

Audrey's tone was calm. "Since he wants me to suspect someone inside the Turner family, I'll follow that thread."

Ethan blinked. "Pretend to take the bait?"

"Exactly." Audrey stood up. She didn't rush to examine the file Cameron had given her.

She set it on the corner of her desk and turned to sort through Bronte's belongings.

That night, she sat alone under the lamp, spreading out Bronte's possessions one by one.

Bronte hadn't left much behind—a few worn sketchbooks, two pencils sharpened down to stubs, a stack of yellowed letters, and several old garments faded beyond recognition.

Audrey examined each item. Most were ordinary, nothing particularly noteworthy.

Until she picked up the last sketchbook.

This one was thinner than the others, its cover badly worn. Audrey opened it casually. Inside were mostly sketches from Bronte's early years—landscapes, objects, figure studies, all executed with clean, decisive strokes.

When she reached the middle section, her fingers suddenly stilled.

Tucked into that page was a slip of paper, yellowed and brittle with age. No signature, no date—just an address scrawled in hasty, urgent handwriting.

Audrey didn't recognize the handwriting.

She stared at that line of text for a long time, then carefully removed the note and photographed it with her phone.

The next morning, without telling anyone, she drove alone to the address on the note.

The location was on the outskirts of Suncrest City, far from any main road. Even the GPS couldn't pinpoint the exact location.

She drove for nearly an hour down a rutted dirt road before finally spotting a house at the road's end, almost completely swallowed by overgrown weeds.

Half the roof had collapsed. The place had clearly been abandoned for years.

The lock on the door had long since rusted through. She pushed gently, and the door fell inward.

The dust inside was thick enough to show footprints. Furniture lay scattered and overturned. Unknown debris filled the corners.

She stood in the center of the room, scanning her surroundings. Nothing obvious caught her eye.

But as she moved, the floor beneath her feet made a faint, unusual sound.

Audrey crouched down and brushed away the layer of dust, revealing a floor tile slightly different in color from the surrounding ones.

She tapped it lightly. Hollow underneath.

It took her a while to pry the tile up, exposing a small hidden compartment.

Inside lay a tin box, covered in rust, its clasp rusted shut.

She used a stone to break the clasp open. Inside the box was an old black device, about the size of her palm—it looked like some kind of early surveillance recording equipment.

Audrey brought the box back to the hotel. That evening, she borrowed an old playback device and carefully extracted the storage medium. After considerable effort, she finally got the footage to play.

The image was black and white, grainy, the angle fixed—like footage from a hidden camera in some corner. She fast-forwarded for a long time before finally stopping at a specific timestamp.

The date displayed clearly: the night before the fire at the Turner Villa.

In the footage, the side door in the back courtyard—normally kept locked—was being opened from the inside. A figure in dark clothing stood by the door, apparently looking outside.

A few seconds later, several people entered from outside and walked directly toward the interior of the house.

The figure who'd opened the side door turned their head slightly as those people passed, revealing a blurred profile.

In that instant, Audrey hit pause.

She stared at that face, studying it for a long time, but she didn't recognize it.

But then, in the lower right corner of the frame, a small figure emerged.

A little girl stood behind a corridor pillar, one hand against the column, half her face hidden in shadow, only her eyes visible—staring unblinkingly at the person who'd opened the side door.

She made no sound, just watched. Audrey recognized her. It was Bronte.

That year, Bronte had been seven years old.

She captured a screenshot and saved it, then closed the laptop and sat with her eyes closed for a long time.

Bronte had never mentioned that night.

She'd never mentioned seeing someone open the side door and let outsiders into the house.

Audrey opened her eyes and reopened the laptop, taking screenshots of the figure's physical characteristics for comparison.

She sent an encrypted instruction to White Dove's archives team.

[Cross-reference all security personnel who worked for the Turner family in the three years before the massacre.]

White Dove's archive system retained massive amounts of low-level data collected by early web crawlers, including employment records from security companies, transport firms, and private property security personnel across various cities.

Less than two hours later, a list came back.

Audrey scanned through the dozen or so names, her gaze finally settling on one entry.

Randal Potts, male, forty years old at the time, Suncrest City local. Before the incident, he'd worked as head of the Turner family's perimeter security team, responsible for night patrols of the back entrance and warehouse area.

He'd resigned seven days after the incident. No subsequent records. In other words, this man had vanished.

Audrey didn't rush to conclusions.

"Check whether Randal Potts appeared later under a different name," she told White Dove's archivist.

Two days later, the answer came back. Three months after the Turner Villa fire, Randal had re-registered under the name Stefan Hensley in a small coastal city down south and opened a security equipment store there. The business was still operating.

Audrey stared at that record for a long time.

The man who'd reinvented himself was now in his nineties.

But what he'd left behind all those years ago might still be passing down through the generations.

She dialed Arabella's number again.

"I have an assignment. You might need to make the trip yourself."

"I can do that." Arabella's tone was crisp.