Lockdown

Just trying to dust. The words were a flimsy, tattered shield. Elena watched the feather duster tremble in Val’s grip, the movement syncing with the lie. Val wasn't a cleaner; she was an operative. The PEEP dial didn't turn by accident. It required torque. It required intent.

"Thank you, Diana," Elena said, her voice ice-cold. "But I handle the equipment. Always."

She turned her back on Val, a calculated risk. She reset the pressure alarm parameters on the digital console, her fingers moving with the muscle memory of a mother who had kept a child alive for three years. She needed to check the logs. If the dial had been turned manually, the digital record would only show the pressure spike. But if they had tried to access the software...

She navigated to the event history.

*4:02 PM - User: Guest - Access Granted*
*4:03 PM - Parameter Change: Pressure Limit Override*

The time stamp was from this afternoon, while Elena was in the attic finding the burner phone. Marcus had been in the study. Val had been "resting" in the guest cottage.

Elena stared at the screen. *User: Guest*. The account she had set up for the traveling nurses, the one with limited permissions. But the pressure limit was an admin-level function. Someone had used the Guest account to exploit a backdoor she didn't know existed.

"El?" Val’s voice was closer now. "You're shaking."

Elena spun around. Val had moved into the room, her hand outstretched, reaching for Elena’s shoulder. The silk robe slipped, revealing the smooth, unblemished skin of her forearm—skin that should have borne the faint, silvery trace of a childhood bike accident.

"Don't touch me," Elena whispered.

Val froze. "I just wanted to help. You're exhausted. You're seeing things."

"I see everything," Elena said. She moved to the door, placing herself between Val and the crib. "Go back to your room, Diana. I need to calibrate the sensors. It takes a specific code."

Val hesitated, her eyes flickering to the machine, then back to Elena. The mask of the concerned sister faltered for a second, revealing a flash of cold, hard calculation. She nodded slowly.

"Okay. Call me if you need me."

Val retreated into the hallway. Elena waited until she heard the guest room door click shut. Then she turned back to the ventilator console. She accessed the admin panel, her fingers flying. She needed to lock them out. Completely.

She deleted the *User: Guest* profile. She stripped the remote access protocols. Then, she navigated to the master password reset.

She needed something they couldn't guess. Not a birthday. Not an anniversary. Not a name found in a diary or a social media post.

She typed in a sequence of eight numbers. It wasn't random. It was the date on the death certificate she had seen on the tablet. The day the real Diana died alone in London.

She changed the password to a sequence of numbers only she knew. Leo's birthday? No. The day her sister died.