Chapter 12: Someone’s watching

Did you ever get the uncomfortable feeling that someone was watching you? It might be because someone is watching you. It certainly was with Georgia.

Camgirl

After I finished scrubbing the floor yesterday, I went back to examining computers. Something I overlooked the first time I checked the computer was that Georgia had a webcam connected to it. Well, it’s not uncommon. I have a cam built into my laptop. Maybe she liked to chat. It must have made a pretty picture to have me in my bathrobe and coffee sitting in front of the computer this morning.

I had a sudden shiver down my spine.

What if she’d left a chat open on her computer? I could be sitting in someone’s private office right now. At least I’d disconnected the network from the modem first thing. I crawled under the desk and unplugged the webcam from the video input port on the tower. But the feeling wouldn’t leave me alone. I went into the kitchen and saw the laptop on the kitchen counter. It looked like it was hibernating, but I got a piece of masking tape from a kitchen drawer and taped over the tiny camera lens on the screen of the laptop. Now I was on a quest. I headed upstairs to the room I’d been sleeping in. The computer there was a simple, off the shelf model of a secondary brand. I had to look around a bit before I saw the webcam on the bookshelf. It was wireless. I took it down and found a switch on the cam and turned it to off.

I had avoided going into Georgia’s bedroom. At least, I assumed it was the place where she slept. It was different than any of the other rooms in the house, partly in that it was a mess. The sheets were rumpled, there were clothes on the floor. I had to discipline myself to stop and take inventory of my surroundings. After the pristine sterility of the rest of the house, this room was overwhelming to the senses.

At the top of the stairs were three doors—left, right, and straight ahead. Georgia’s was the right door. It opened inward and about halfway it caught on the strap of a bra that was on the floor in front of it. To my left was a four-drawer dresser. The top left drawer was open showing various bits of underwear. Lots of prints. Without pawing through it, I could tell there were also lots of very sexy and skimpy pieces. Georgia’s wild side, no doubt. The other three drawers were closed but a nylon stocking was hanging out of the second drawer down. On top of the dresser was a jewelry box with the lid opened and the baubles just sort of piled into it. A tray of makeup sat on a lacy doily with no apparent order. I hadn’t seen any makeup in the bathroom and I could see why. A big mirror hung over the dresser with much better light than the little one in the bathroom. Continuing to the right, a pretty big dormer cut into the slanting ceiling. The bungalows in this part of town looked like they had all had upper rooms added under the eaves. There was plenty of headroom, but the wall with the dormer slanted in. In the dormer was a desk and the fancy gaming computer I’d seen on my first cursory glance into the room. Now that I was looking for it, I could see the webcam sitting on the desk was bigger, presumably better quality than the others I’d found. This computer had a big twenty-inch screen with a joystick control sitting beside the mouse. The camera was aimed toward the third wall of the room. Mirrored bi-fold doors stood partially open, revealing a closet full of clothes, both hanging and on the floor where it joined a dozen pairs of shoes. Lovely sight to show your gaming partners.

Finally, to my right, the queen-sized bed jutted out from the wall into the middle of the room. The bed was really too big for the size of the room, and it had a very girly pink frilly padded headboard. The satin sheets looked impossible to keep tucked in. A bedside table on either side held a lamp and alarm clock on one side and a lamp and book on the other side. The book was by a local mystery writer known for graphically explicit torture and death scenes. A blood-spatter writer, I’d heard her called. The nightstands were fully enclosed with a drawer and door on the front.

I crossed to the desk and disconnected the webcam. Then, just to make sure, I scanned the room to see if there were any of the wireless variety I saw in the other room. Standing at the desk, I realized the cam was positioned in such a way that with the closet doors closed, it would see a pretty good reflection of the entire room. I didn’t see any more cameras, so I decided to check out the closet. Typical girl that I am, I had to see if I shared any of the same taste in clothes that my cousin Georgia had.

I did not. The clothes in her closet were not the refined and understated clothing I’d come to expect from my sojourn in Savannah. There were a couple of suits, but the pencil skirts seemed almost too skinny for me to cram my butt into. I didn’t think Georgia could be any thinner than I am, but I hadn’t seen a recent photo. The rest of the clothes included outfits I’d have guessed Frederick’s of Hollywood would carry. Some I could only classify as costumes.

I was rapidly losing respect for my so-called cousin. This looked like a hooker’s closet. For Pete’s sake, the lady was fifty-one years old.

I went to the bedside table between the bed and the closet and opened the drawer. OMG! A selection of dildos for every occasion. Not that I’ve actually ever seen one up close, but I know what they are. Brenda had a collection of them in her bedside table. I opened the door and there were ropes—satiny ropes that matched the sheets. I pushed aside the bed skirt and found a tying ring bolted into the floor. On the other side, I found the same, plus handcuffs and some various whips, blindfolds, and gags. Oh ... I was not going to tell Grover about any of this. I suddenly agreed: There are some things a father shouldn’t know about his daughter. I wished at this moment that I didn’t know.