Chapter 7: Drug Abuse

"Okay, George, it's all set."

George looked up from his computer. Eddy Cusmano was standing at his bedroom doorway holding a manila folder in one hand and a small toolbox in the other. Eddy was Leroy's little brother. He also just so happened to be an IT professional who worked for a large corporation in downtown Cleveland. Obviously he'd done a lot better with his life than Leroy, George's coworker, ever had.

George nodded to the scrawny man. He was dressed like his profession would suggest: dark rimmed glasses, polo shirt tucked into name-brand khakis, dress shoes. George stood and approached him, his large frame towering above the much smaller man.

"So it's all ready?" he asked gruffly.

"I need to install something on your computer, but yeah, the hard part's done. Want to see?" he grinned. There was something creepy about the man's expression, but it didn't really bother George too much. After all he was Leroy's brother. Leroy and George went way back, all the way back to the war, actually. Any brother of his could be trusted.

He followed the computer-nerd down the hall to Amy's bedroom. When they got inside everything looked just like it should: clean, pristine, girly. Amy had begun to slack at some of her chores the last few weeks, but cleaning her room wasn't one of them. That alone had begun George's suspicions.

"There are three installed, like you asked," Eddy said excitedly. He pointed to one corner of the room. "The primary is right there. Can you see it?"

George squinted his eyes, then shook his head. "No," he admitted.

Eddy was grinning from ear to ear. "The lens is smaller than the tip of a ballpoint pen. But it's there, trust me. The second camera," he continued while pointing to the next corner of the room, "is there. Those two alone will cover more than 70% of the room. The third one gets the rest. It's right here."

George watched as the scrawny man walked quickly to an area just to the left of his daughter's desk. He was pointing up to where the wall met the ceiling. "This one happens to be the most obvious, but it couldn't be helped. And besides, if I hadn't pointed it out to you would you have ever seen it?"

George walked over and studied the area. He did see a little hole this time but Eddy was right: if it hadn't been pointed out to him he'd never have found it on his own.

"Good," George nodded. "This should work. What about her computer?"

Eddy seemed almost bored about this topic. "Yes, sure, I fixed it so you'll be able to see what's she's up to on there. That was easy, I won't even charge for that. But these cameras, George, do you have any idea how sophisticated the technology is? There are better ones on the market but for your purposes these are simply amazing! Wireless, full color, 1.2GHz transmission frequency on 300 mega-watt power-"

"Okay, okay," George said. "I get it. I told you to get me the best. But I thought I told you to buy four?"

Eddy shrugged his shoulders. "You don't really need four, George. If your daughter's using drugs, you'll catch her with these three. The only area of the room you won't be able to see is inside her closet."

George nodded. "Okay, then. We'll save the fourth just in case."

"Let me set up your computer now, and show you how this all works," Eddy said excitedly.

About ten minutes later George watched on as Eddy triumphantly declared, "There, it's all done. Now check this out."

He walked through the user-friendly program step-by-step with the 51-year-old construction worker. George had been using computers for several years, but even the basic things still seemed complicated to him most of the time. This program, however, did make sense. A few minutes later and George understood how to turn the cameras on, how to turn the audio on, how to isolate a single camera or watch all three at once. The quality of the feed was impressive, too: full color, a little grainy perhaps, but definitely of much higher quality than those crappy black-and-white security cameras he always saw being used in liquor stores on "Wild Police Videos" on TV.

"Good, good," George said. "Now, how do I record something?"

Eddy stopped. His excited expression turned serious suddenly, and he turned his head away from the two computer monitors in front of him.

"George," he began carefully, "why would you want to record anything?"

George's face blushed red. The man who had been so careful not to ask too many questions suddenly seemed to be implying something. It was offensive.

"If I catch her in there using," George snapped angrily, "I wanna be able to confront her with the evidence!"

Eddy took a deep breath. "Look, George, please don't take offense. I'm saying you're gonna become some peeping Tom. Hell, I've never seen your daughter, she might be something to avoid looking at for all I know. I just want to give ya fair warning that if you accidentally record her in... say, compromising situations? Well, if anyone ever found those recordings, well, that'd be child porn, that's all I'm saying. That's a felony."

"I told you I'm only using this to find out if she's on drugs, that's it," George snapped back, fighting to control his sudden anger. "I'm not gonna spy on her! What kinda sick fuck do you think I am?"

"Look, what," Eddy said quickly, "I'm just saying be careful! I'm not judging you, I'm not implying anything, I'm just saying to be careful. You know?"