Tucked under the edge of the porch railing was a camera no bigger than my thumbnail, aimed directly at our front door.
“That’s not yours?” he asked.
“No.”
The case, the object behind Ethan’s ear, the camera.
Suddenly this wasn’t an estranged uncle trying to reconnect with his nephew.
Someone had been watching my house.
The officers took Ethan and me to the station while specialists dealt with the case. Marcus’s warning had made me assume the disc was some kind of tracker.
It wasn’t.
It was an electronic key for the case.
Ethan admitted Derek had stuck it behind his ear and told him, “Don’t lose this. You’ll need it when you take the box to your dad’s things.”
“And if your mom finds the box first, she can’t open it.”
The patch wasn’t sophisticated.
It was simply a hiding place Derek thought I would never check.
Once the police removed it safely, they used it to open the case.
