Chapter 2 - The Missing Footage
The ambulance transported Emma to St. Matthew’s Medical Center.
Daniel rode beside her.
For most of the drive, neither of them spoke.
The paramedic monitored the baby’s heartbeat.
Emma stared at the ceiling and listened to every steady electronic beat.
It was the only sound that mattered.
Daniel finally reached for her hand.
Emma pulled hers away.
His face tightened.
“Emma.”
“Not now.”
“I didn’t know Lauren would ever do something like this.”
Emma turned toward him.
“You didn’t know because every time I told you what she was doing, you explained it away.”
Daniel said nothing.
Emma closed her eyes.
She remembered Christmas dinners where Lauren mocked her clothes.
Charity events where Margaret introduced Emma as Daniel’s “little schoolteacher wife.”
Family vacations where everyone mysteriously forgot to reserve a room for her.
She remembered Daniel apologizing afterward.
Always afterward.
Never when it mattered.
At the mansion, Detective Ruiz remained with the officers.
Lauren sat in the library beside the Caldwell family attorney, Charles Bennett.
Margaret stood near the fireplace.
Rosa waited alone near the servants’ entrance.
Detective Ruiz requested access to the security recordings.
The head of household security, Graham Pike, entered the room carrying a tablet.
“There’s a problem.”
Ruiz looked up.
“What problem?”
“The staircase camera stopped recording at 4:12 this afternoon.”
Ruiz checked his watch.
Emma had fallen at approximately 4:37.
“When did it resume?”
“It didn’t.”
Lauren immediately spoke.
“See?”
She folded her arms.
“There’s no evidence because nothing happened.”
Ruiz turned toward her.
“That is not what missing evidence means.”
Graham opened the security log.
Ruiz studied it.
Someone had manually disabled three cameras.
The staircase camera.
The second-floor hallway camera.
And the study camera.
All three had been turned off using an administrator account.
Ruiz looked toward Graham.
“Whose account?”
Graham hesitated.
“Mrs. Margaret Caldwell’s.”
Margaret’s face hardened.
“That system is accessible to several staff members.”
“Who knows the password?”
Margaret said nothing.
Ruiz looked at Lauren.
She avoided his eyes.
Then Rosa suddenly moved.
She took one careful step forward.
“I saw something.”
Every head turned toward her.
Lauren’s expression changed instantly.
Rosa looked frightened, but she continued.
“Before Mrs. Emma fell, I saw Miss Lauren leaving the security office.”
Lauren shot to her feet.
“She’s lying.”
Rosa flinched.
Ruiz lifted one hand.
“Sit down, Ms. Caldwell.”
Lauren ignored him.
“She’s angry because I corrected her this morning.”
Rosa lowered her eyes.
Ruiz noticed.
“So you were in the security office?”
Lauren hesitated.
“I walked past it.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Charles Bennett interrupted.
“My client will not answer further questions without counsel.”
Ruiz nodded.
“That’s her right.”
He turned back toward Graham.
“Preserve every server, access log, backup drive, and connected device.”
Graham looked uncomfortable.
“There is one more thing.”
Ruiz waited.
“The main system makes an automatic cloud backup every fifteen minutes.”
Lauren’s face became completely still.
Ruiz noticed that too.
“Can the backup be deleted locally?”
“No.”
For the first time that evening, Detective Ruiz smiled slightly.
“Good.”
At the hospital, Emma was undergoing an ultrasound when her phone vibrated beside Daniel.
A message appeared on the screen.
Daniel accidentally saw the first line.
WE FOUND THE BACKUP.
May you like
Then another message appeared beneath it.
AND LAUREN WASN’T ALONE.
