Not Your Camera
The charger had fallen behind the bookshelf again. That's all it was. Frank got down on one knee and reached into the gap between the shelf and the wall, fingers brushing dust and the edge of a power strip, and then something else — something small and hard and warm, wedged into the joint where the shelf met the baseboard.
He pulled it out and held it up to the light from the window. Matte black, no bigger than a shirt button. A pinhole on one side. A micro-USB port on the other. No brand, no label, nothing.
It had been pointed at his couch.
Frank sat on the floor with his back against the bookshelf. He turned the thing over in his palm. The warmth faded as it sat in the open air, and that was the part that got him — it had been on. However long it had been there, it had been running.
His phone buzzed on the kitchen counter. He didn't move.
The apartment looked the way it always looked. Diane's blanket folded over the arm of the couch. The deadbolt key hanging on its hook by the door, next to the spare he'd given Ray two years ago — no, that one was at Ray's place. He'd given it to Ray the week he moved in. And Diane had hers on a keychain with a little brass D that she'd bought at a flea market in Beacon.
Three keys. His was on the hook. The other two were out there somewhere.
His phone buzzed again. He closed his fist around the camera and stood up slowly, like the room might notice.
The text was from Diane. hey are you home? thinking about coming over. He stared at the words until the screen dimmed.
He put the camera in his pocket. Then he took it out and looked at it again. Then he put it back. He wanted to put it back where he found it — behind the shelf, pointed at the couch, like he'd never touched it — but his hands wouldn't do it. Putting it back meant sitting on that couch tonight knowing it was there.
The front door was fifteen feet away. He could go to the police. He could call Marcie. He could text Diane back something normal and pour himself a drink and figure this out like a rational person.
But whoever put it there — they'd been watching the feed. Maybe right now. And if the feed went dark, they'd know.
Frank stood in his living room with a camera in his pocket and his girlfriend asking if he was home. The afternoon light came through the blinds in bars across the carpet. Somewhere, someone had been sitting in front of a screen, watching him live his life on this couch, and he didn't know for how long, and he didn't know why, and the only people with keys were the two people he'd trusted enough to give them to.
Frank locked the bathroom door and turned on the faucet. He didn't know if the camera had audio. He stood there watching the water run into the drain, then pulled out his phone and called Marcie.
She picked up on the fourth ring.
Hey. What's up.
Are you somewhere you can talk?
A beat. He heard her TV go quiet.
Yeah. Frank, what's wrong.
I found a camera in my apartment.
Nothing for three seconds. Then he heard her breathe out through her nose.
What kind of camera.
Small. Wireless. No brand on it. It was behind my bookshelf, pointed at the couch. It was running, Marcie. It was on.
Okay. Okay.
He could hear her moving — a chair pushed back, footsteps on hardwood.
Where is it now?
In my pocket.
She laughed once, short and hard.
And tell them what? Someone broke in and left a camera? Nothing's broken. Nothing's missing. Three people have keys and two of them are—
Two of them are what.
The faucet ran. Frank pressed his forehead against the mirror. It was cold.
Diane has a key. Ray has a key. That's it.
You think Diane put a camera in your apartment.
I don't think anything yet. I'm telling you who has keys.
Three seconds. He heard her breathing.
Have you — is it possible someone got in another way? A window, or—
Fourth floor. Fire escape's on the other side of the building.
Right.
Another pause. When she spoke again her voice had changed, gone flat.
You should put it back.
What?
Put it back where you found it. If whoever did this checks the feed and sees nothing, they'll know you found it. You lose the only advantage you have.
Frank opened his mouth and closed it. He'd had the same thought standing in the living room and hadn't been able to make himself do it.
You want me to sit on my couch and act normal while somebody watches.
I want you to call the cops. But if you're not going to do that — and I can hear that you're not — then yeah. Put it back. Act normal. Figure out who it is before they figure out you know.
His phone buzzed against his cheek. He pulled it away. Another text from Diane: everything ok? heading over in 20 if you're around.
Diane's coming over.
Tonight?
Twenty minutes.
Silence on the line. He heard her swallow.
Then you better decide what you're doing with that camera in your pocket before she gets there, Frank. Because if it's her, she's going to check. And if it's not her — you still can't have it sitting in your jeans when she asks why you're acting weird.
He killed the faucet. The pipes shuddered once and went quiet.
Frank put the phone down on the edge of the sink. Marcie was still on the line. He could hear her breathing.
Stay on with me.
I'm here.
He started with the bathroom. Medicine cabinet — ibuprofen, Diane's contact solution, a half-empty bottle of NyQuil he didn't remember buying. He felt along the back panel and found nothing. The vent above the toilet took thirty seconds with his thumbnail on the screws. Nothing.
The bedroom went faster. Closet shelf, gap behind the dresser, the outlet plates — all clean. Then he picked up the alarm clock Diane had given him last Christmas. A little white cube with rounded edges. He turned it over slowly, pressing his thumb into the seam where the casing met the base. He held it up to the window and looked into the speaker grille.
Just an alarm clock.
He set it back on the nightstand. Then he stood there looking at the fact that he'd wiped it.
The kitchen took two minutes. Behind the microwave, inside the vent hood, along the top of the cabinets where grease and dust made a film over everything. He found a pen he'd lost in March. He found a rubber band and a twist tie from something. He found nothing else.
That left the living room.
The fridge compressor was ticking. Frank stood at the edge of the room and made himself look at the couch — Diane's blanket still folded over the arm, the cushions holding the shape of no one. He got on his hands and knees and felt along the underside of the coffee table. Ran his fingers behind the TV mount. Pulled the couch away from the wall six inches and checked the baseboard, the outlet, the gap where the carpet met the trim. He lifted each cushion and pressed his palm flat against the fabric underneath.
One camera. Just the one.
He pushed the couch back into place and refolded Diane's blanket the way she did it — thirds, not halves, with the tag tucked under. He picked up his phone from the bathroom.
Just the one. Living room only.
Okay. That's — I mean that's good, right?
Because if someone wanted to rob you they'd watch the door. If someone wanted — I don't know, leverage, blackmail — they'd put one in the bedroom. One camera on the couch means somebody wanted to see you. Sitting there. Being you.
Frank looked at the couch.
Put it back.
Yeah.
He knelt by the bookshelf and wedged the camera back into the joint where the shelf met the baseboard. Pinhole facing the couch. The angle looked right. He wasn't sure. He adjusted it a quarter inch and then couldn't remember which way it had been pointing and adjusted it back.
When she gets there — watch what she looks at when she comes in.
The line went dead. Frank stood in his living room holding his phone. Twelve minutes until Diane.
He texted her back: yeah come over. Then he sat on the couch, right where the camera could see him, and put his feet up on the coffee table. He picked up the remote. The TV was already on — he'd muted it hours ago and forgotten. A cooking show. Someone was julienning carrots with a knife that caught the studio light.
Frank unmuted it and turned the volume up two clicks. Normal. This is what normal looked like.
Frank pulled out his phone with the TV still going. He opened his browser and typed: wireless pinhole camera matte black micro USB no brand.
The first three results were Amazon listings. He scrolled past the sponsored ones and found a tech blog — '2024 Hidden Camera Buyer's Guide' — and almost laughed. Buyer's guide. He opened it.
Halfway down the page. The Vektor M2. Button-sized, matte black housing, pinhole lens, micro-USB charging port. No external branding. The photo matched. Sixty-four dollars for a three-pack on Amazon with next-day delivery.
Sold in packs of three. He'd found one.
He kept reading. Wi-Fi enabled, streamed through a companion app called SightLine. Broadcast range two hundred feet on a clean signal. The reviewer noted you could connect it to any available network or run it on its own ad hoc signal, though the ad hoc mode was unreliable. Most users connected it to their home Wi-Fi.
Frank lowered the phone. His router was in the bedroom closet. A Netgear with the default admin password he'd never changed, because who would bother. Anyone on his network could see connected devices. Anyone with his Wi-Fi password — which was on a Post-it stuck to the router itself, because Diane had asked for it once and he'd just left it there.
He could check. Right now. Log into the router admin panel and see every device on his network. If the camera was there, he'd see it. If it wasn't — if it was running on someone else's Wi-Fi, pulling signal through the wall — that narrowed things.
He typed 192.168.1.1 into his browser. The login page loaded. Admin. Password. He typed them both and hit enter.
The device list populated. His phone. His laptop. The smart TV. Diane's iPad, still connected from last weekend. And one more — no name, just a MAC address, connected since March 14th.
March 14th. Frank stared at the date. Six weeks. He tried to think about what had happened six weeks ago and couldn't separate one day from another. Diane had been over that weekend. Ray had come by to borrow his drill. Marcie had visited the week before, or — no. He wasn't sure.
On the TV, the chef was plating. Microgreens placed with tweezers. A smear of reduction across white porcelain.
Frank closed the browser. He sat back down on the couch. Eight minutes.
His Wi-Fi network. His router. The password on a Post-it note that anyone in his apartment could have seen. The camera had been on his network for six weeks, pulling his bandwidth, and he'd never once checked.
The cooking show had moved on to desserts. A woman in a white apron was piping batter into madeleine molds, narrating each step in a voice so calm it sounded medicated. Frank watched her hands. He turned the volume up one more click and set the remote on the cushion beside him.
He could feel the bookshelf behind him. He didn't turn around. That was the deal now. Don't turn around. Don't look at it. Whoever was on the other end of that feed — if they were watching — they'd see a guy on his couch on a Tuesday night with the TV on.
His stomach wouldn't unclench. He breathed through it. Seven minutes. Six. He tried to remember what he normally did when Diane was coming over and realized he'd never had to think about it before.
A key turned in the deadbolt.
Not a knock. Her key. The lock clicked and the door swung open and Diane came in carrying a paper bag from the Thai place on Seventh, her phone tucked under her chin, mid-sentence with someone.
She held up one finger to Frank — one second — and set the bag on the counter.
She hung up and dropped the phone in her purse. Then she looked at him. Smiled.
I got you the green curry. They were out of the chicken so it's tofu, don't make that face.
I'm not making a face.
She was already pulling containers out of the bag, moving through his kitchen the way she'd moved through it a hundred times — cabinet for the plates, second drawer for the forks, paper towels off the roll by the fridge. She didn't hesitate. She didn't look around.
She brought two plates to the couch and handed him one. Sat down next to him, close, her knee against his thigh. She held the cuffs of her sleeves bunched in her fists as she settled in, then let go to pick up her fork.
What are we watching?
Baking show. I don't know.
She leaned into him. Her hair smelled like the cold outside.
Which text?
"Yeah come over." That's it? No emoji, no nothing? Very serial killer of you.
He made himself laugh. It came out close enough.
Yeah?
She waited. Fork halfway to her mouth, watching him.
Just work stuff. Nothing worth talking about.
She held his eyes for another second. Then she nodded and ate.
They ate. On the screen, the woman pulled the madeleine tray from the oven and tipped the shells out onto parchment paper. Perfect golden ridges, each one identical. Frank chewed tofu and green curry and tasted nothing.
Diane set her plate on the coffee table and pulled her legs up under her.
What about it.
Her sleeves were over her hands again. Fists in the cuffs.
The room tilted. Frank set his plate down carefully.
We don't have to decide anything now. I just wanted to put it out there.
You want to move in.
I want to talk about it. When you're ready. No pressure.
She reached over and put her hand on his knee. Her fingers were cold from the takeout containers. Frank looked at her hand. He looked at the bookshelf behind the couch, just for a half-second, before he caught himself and looked back at her.
Diane's eyes followed where his had gone. Just for a moment. Then back to his face.
Frank?
Yeah. Yeah, let's — let's talk about it this weekend.
She smiled. She leaned over and kissed him on the side of his mouth, quick and warm, and then picked up the remote and started scrolling through channels. Her shoulder pressed against his.
On the coffee table, her phone lit up with a notification. Frank couldn't read it from this angle — just the glow, and the first two letters of the app name before the screen dimmed again. Si—
Frank's hand closed around Diane's phone before the screen went dark. The weight of it, the case with the cracked corner. He tilted it toward him and the notification was already gone — just her lock screen, a photo of the two of them at the beach in September, squinting into the sun.
Diane didn't grab for it. She went still, fork suspended over her plate, and watched him hold her phone.
What are you doing.
He put the phone down. Face up on the coffee table between them.
So you grabbed my phone.
He couldn't hold her gaze. He looked at the coffee table, the plates, the takeout bag crumpled between them.
Diane set her fork down.
Talk to me. What's going on with you tonight.
Three knocks on the front door. Hard. Not a neighbor's knock.
Frank and Diane both looked at the door. Then at each other. Then Frank got up because moving was easier than answering her question.
He opened the door and Marcie was standing in the hallway with her coat zipped to her chin, purse strap across her chest like she'd left the house in a hurry. She looked past Frank into the apartment and saw Diane on the couch and her mouth tightened.
Hey. Sorry. I was in the neighborhood.
Diane stood up from the couch. She knew Marcie. They'd done holidays. But there was a frequency between them now that Frank couldn't tune into.
Sure. Sure you were.
Yeah. Yeah, come in.
Marcie stepped inside and the apartment shrank. She stayed near the door. Diane stayed by the couch. Frank stood between them with his hands at his sides.
Diane's voice had changed. The patience was gone.
Marcie's eyes moved to the bookshelf. Just a flick — fast enough that someone who wasn't looking would miss it. But Diane was looking. And Frank saw Diane see it.
The TV was off now — Frank didn't remember muting it. Three people in a one-bedroom apartment and the camera behind the bookshelf recording all of it, its pinhole aimed at the back of Frank's skull and the side of Diane's face.
Diane's jaw was tight. Her eyes went from Marcie to Frank to the bookshelf and back to Frank.
Nobody moved. Diane sat on the couch with her hands in her lap. Marcie stood by the door. Frank stood between them.
Diane.
Don't. Not yet.
She stood up from the couch. She walked to the kitchen counter and put both palms flat on it, her back to both of them.
Diane, whatever this is—
Diane turned around. Her face was open in a way Frank hadn't seen all night. No composure. Just the thing underneath it.
Frank felt the floor shift under him. Not the camera. Not what he'd expected.
What does that have to do with—
Your dad died at forty-six. You're forty-one. You told me you were going and you weren't going, and I couldn't—
She stopped. Pressed her lips together.
I needed to know if you were lying about other things too.
Marcie said nothing for a moment. Then: That's a felony in this state.
Diane's jaw tightened. She looked at Frank, not Marcie.
The kitchen faucet dripped. Twice.
How did you know I called her from the bathroom.
Diane blinked.
What?
Earlier. You said I told her. The camera's in the living room. It doesn't see the bathroom. So how did you know I called Marcie from in there.
Diane's hands went to her sleeves. She caught herself. Stopped. Put her palms back on the counter.
I saw you get up and go to the bathroom. I saw you come back out twenty minutes later and the camera was back in place. I'm not stupid.
That's a guess.
It's an obvious guess.
Frank looked at her across the kitchen. The woman who folded blankets in thirds and kept contact solution in his medicine cabinet and had a key on a brass D from a flea market in Beacon. Who knew his Wi-Fi password because he'd left it on a Post-it for her.
Diane went still.
The Vektor M2 comes in packs of three. Where are the other two.
And there it was. Not the camera. Not the violation. The look on Diane's face — the way her mouth opened and nothing came out. She hadn't expected him to ask that, and the answer was going to be worse than the question.
I returned them.
You returned two and kept one.
I only needed one.
Marcie picked up her purse from the floor by the door. She looked at Frank and then she looked at the floor.
I think you should go home tonight.
Frank—
I'm not calling the cops. I'm not doing anything tonight. But you need to go home.
Diane picked up her purse from the couch. She stopped next to him on the way to the door, close enough that he could smell her shampoo.
The appointment is Friday. Your doctor's office. I called last week.
Frank didn't answer. She'd surveilled him for six weeks and her exit line was a doctor's appointment. He didn't know what to do with that.
The door closed behind her. Marcie waited a beat, then two.
You okay?
No.
You want me to stay?
Frank rubbed his face. No.
Marcie left. Frank locked the deadbolt. He walked to the bookshelf and knelt down and pulled the camera out of its crevice. It was warm in his hand. He held it for a long time, the pinhole pointed at nothing, and then he put it in the kitchen drawer with the batteries and the takeout menus and a soy sauce packet and a rubber band.
He sat down on the couch. Diane's blanket was still folded over the arm. He didn't touch it. The TV was dark. The apartment was quiet.
Frank put his head in his hands. After a while he got up and washed the plates.