Page 8 of When You’re Forgotten (Finn Wright #10)

She folded her arms. “You mean the fact that they protect the grounds but not the interior? Maybe James was worried about trespassers, but not so worried about theft from within.”

“Or he had reasons not to have his own activities recorded,” Finn suggested. “He might’ve wanted privacy for… well, who knows what. Considering the staff were told to leave that night, it might be connected.”

Amelia leaned against a stack of boxes. “So you think he was up to something behind closed doors?”

Finn tapped his fingers on the corner of a monitor.

“It’s possible. The entire scenario—the last-minute dismissal, no one else around, no cameras inside—it begs the question of what he was doing in here alone.

Maybe a meeting with a secret associate.

Or a transaction he didn’t want overheard.

” He paused. “If he was stressed as his sister Catherine claimed, maybe James was engaging in something shady.”

Amelia’s gaze flicked to the screens. “Right. That could lead to a confrontation, which might have escalated.”

She moved to stand beside him, eyes tracing the camera displays.

The front drive showed a patch of gravel and the distant gate illuminated by weak floodlights.

The rear garden feed displayed a softly lit stone path and swaying silhouettes of hedges in the breeze.

Two side-camera feeds took in partial angles of the manor’s flanks, but as Amelia pointed out, “I notice the entire eastern side is missing. Large chunk of ground there with no coverage.”

Finn frowned. “Yes. If the system’s meant to safeguard the perimeter, leaving an entire approach uncovered is odd. Why bother with cameras at all if you leave a blind spot?”

“It doesn’t cost much to have a camera feed like this. You’d think they’d install a complete setup,” Amelia said, rubbing her chin. “So if an intruder came from the east—”

“—the cameras wouldn’t see them.” Finn finished. “That might be how that prowler got close on the night James died.”

Amelia gave him a small nod. “In the initial report from the local cops, it was mentioned there was a shape on the lawn, captured by one of these cameras, right?”

Finn opened up his phone and read one of the notes he’d kept.

“Yes,” he said. “It says, ‘Unidentified figure glimpsed on feed, approaching from the front but then moving out of frame.’ Then it disappears.” He turned to the console, scanning for the playback controls.

“Let’s see if we can load the footage from that night. ”

After a minute of fiddling, he located a panel with labeled discs or memory cards. The date stamp read the night James died. Toggling a small screen, he found a black-and-white recording of the front lawn, time-stamped around 9:45 pm. He and Amelia bent closer, eyes locked on the fuzzy image.

At first, the lawn looked empty, just faint shapes of shrubs trembling in the wind. Then, around the corner of the screen, a shifting silhouette appeared. Grainy and dark, it edged along the grass in an unnatural crouch.

“That’s it,” Amelia whispered, tapping the screen gently.

Finn slowed the playback. The shape inched forward, almost on all fours. With the poor resolution, it was impossible to discern if it was human. The figure stopped near the boundary of the camera’s coverage, paused as though sniffing the air, and then slunk out of view to the east side.

His skin prickled. “It does look… animal-like,” he said slowly.

Amelia inhaled. “If it’s a person, that’s a bizarre way to approach. Maybe they were trying to remain inconspicuous. With poor lighting, it’s easy to mistake them for a dog or something.”

Finn clicked through additional frames, but the figure never reemerged. “So it’s gone to the east side. Where there’s no camera.”

A hush settled between them, the only sound the faint whir of the recorder. Amelia straightened. “If it is a person, it’s possibly an intruder who confronted James. It would explain why he ran to his panic room. Alone on the estate at night. I can’t imagine...”

Finn shut down the playback, slipping the memory card out. “We’ll hold onto this. But for now, there’s only one way to see if we can glean anything else.”

Amelia arched an eyebrow. “Which is…?”

He grabbed a flashlight from a nearby shelf, presumably used by the security staff. “We go outside, check that east lawn ourselves.”

She pursed her lips, giving a half-laugh. “It’s pitch-dark out there, and we might be rummaging through wet grass. Perfect plan.”

Finn shrugged, a wry grin on his face. “You’re the one who used to say I was never adventurous enough.”

They left the small security room, stepping into the corridor.

The house felt even quieter now that night had fully settled in.

Dim sconces lit the hallway with a weak glow.

The shift from the mild warmth of the manor to the crisp Welsh night air struck them the moment they passed through a side door leading onto the veranda.

Outside, a gentle wind rustled the lawn and hedges, carrying a mild scent of damp earth. The estate’s floodlights offered a patchwork of light and shadow, leaving swaths of lawn in near-blackness. Finn clicked on the flashlight, its beam cutting a narrow path across the grass.

“Let’s see if we can find anything resembling footprints or tracks,” he said, taking a step forward.

Amelia followed, hugging her arms against the chill. Together, they navigated around shrubs and flowerbeds, occasionally wincing at the soft squish of sodden ground underfoot. The hall’s lights behind them seemed distant, giving the impression of stepping into another world, cloaked in darkness.

“So,” Amelia murmured quietly, “someone decided the side-lawn approach was best. Minimal chance of detection, apparently.”

Finn swept the beam across the grass, half-hoping they’d discover footprints or some clue.

The ground showed faint impressions here and there—possibly from staff or deliveries, but none obviously human.

After a few minutes, they reached the eastern edge of the property, where a tall hedge curved along the boundary.

“This is about where the footage cut out,” Finn said, shining the light around. He crouched, peering at the ground more closely.

The grass was uneven, dotted with patches of muddier soil. Something at the edge of his flashlight beam caught his eye—a set of faint depressions forming a sort of trail. He leaned closer, heart ticking up a beat. The shape didn’t look like a simple shoe print.

Amelia knelt beside him, flattening her bandaged hand on a drier patch to steady herself. “What is it?” she asked under her breath.

Finn directed the flashlight carefully, illuminating a small cluster of prints: elongated, smeared, palm-like. The muddy outlines suggested a broad shape—like a human hand. Then, further along, another partial imprint, as if the person had used both hands and knees to move forward.

“They look like… hands,” Finn said, voice hushed with a flicker of unease. “Whoever was crawling out here was literally on all fours.”

Amelia’s breath caught, a swirl of tension filling the dark air around them. “Why crawl around the grounds unless you’re trying to appear as an animal? Or they truly didn’t want to be recognized as human from the cameras’ vantage?”

Finn rocked back on his heels, scanning the rest of the lawn. “The shape we saw in the footage was exactly that—someone or something creeping along. And these tracks confirm it was a person, or at least a person with full use of their hands.”

Amelia’s features tightened. “This is more unsettling than I expected. Could be a burglar, an intruder, maybe a killer.”

Finn shut off the flashlight, letting only the faint glow from the manor windows outline their silhouettes.

A swirl of night wind rattled the nearby hedges, sending a sudden chill down his spine.

The thought of a figure slinking across the lawn on hands and knees, approaching unseen, triggered an uneasy feeling in his gut.

“Maybe James saw whoever it was,” Finn said, “and panicked. That might account for a heart attack—fear or a confrontation.”

Amelia nodded slowly. “Maybe this intruder sneaked into the house when James thought he was safe. I don’t think there’s much more we can get from here tonight.”

He rose, offering her a hand to help her up. “Agreed. No point in stumbling around more now. Let’s head in before we start conjuring monsters in every shadow.”

She accepted his hand, grimacing slightly as she stood, bandaged fingers pressing into his palm. With a wary look over his shoulder at the dark grass behind them, Finn led the way back toward the manor’s warm glow. Each step echoed softly in the hush.

At the threshold, he paused, glancing over the estate’s silhouette.

The security lights revealed just enough to see the imposing structure, windows reflecting moonlight.

Brynmor Hall seemed to watch them in turn, tall and silent.

Another swirl of wind brushed across the driveway, and Finn had a horrible, illogical thought: What else crawls around this estate at night?