"Do you think it was Howard?" Franz asked. They were outside, keeping their voices low from long habit, though the device was dead and sealed in a bag inside the house.
"We can't be certain." Arianne's hand moved in slow circles on her belly. "It could be him. It could be paparazzi trying to get audio of our private life. It could be a corporate competitor looking for leverage. Any of them would have reason to plant something in our home."
"But you think it's him."
"I think we should assume the worst until we have evidence otherwise." She looked at him. "Howard Brennan has been watching our family for decades. He watched my mother until she broke. He watched me when I was a child. If he's escalated to putting devices in our children's toys, we need to treat this as the opening move of something larger, not an isolated incident."
"We are taking it seriously."
