Ellis immediately stepped toward the front door.
“Who accessed the system?”
The technician hesitated.
“That’s the strange part. The code was entered locally.”
“Meaning?”
“Someone was physically at the keypad.”
Everyone in the hallway went silent.
The police had been inside the house.
One of them had photographed the keypad.
Neither officer had entered a code.
Ellis looked at me.
Then she looked at the officers.
“Lock the house down again. Nobody leaves.”
My pulse accelerated.
The person who had hurt Violet might not have been the only one involved.
Someone had just tried to access the system again while police were standing inside.
Then my phone vibrated.
A message had arrived from Violet’s number.
I opened it.
There were only four words.
DAD, DON’T TRUST MOM.
I read it twice.
Then a second message appeared.
IT ISN’T HER CODE.
I looked at Detective Ellis.
“Violet just sent me this.”
