Chapter 4 - The Missing Camera Files
Grant made it three steps before Victor caught him.
They hit the wall hard enough to rattle a framed painting.
"You helped her?" Victor demanded.
Grant shoved him away. "You don't understand what this is."
"Then explain it."
Serena spoke from behind them. "Victor, stop."
He looked at her.
There was no panic left in her face now. Only calculation.
Grant raised both hands. "I turned off cameras. That's all."
"Why?"
"Because Miss Vale told me to."
Serena laughed. "Pathetic."
Grant stared at her. "Don't."
"Don't what? Tell him you were paid?"
Victor's eyes sharpened.
"Paid for what?"
Grant looked away.
Victor's phone buzzed. His assistant had reached the outside security contractor. The system kept thirty days of off-site backups, even if local footage was deleted.
Victor forwarded the request immediately.
Serena's confidence slipped for half a second.
Lily saw it.
"There are backups," she said.
Victor nodded.
Serena turned toward the stairs.
"I'm calling my attorney."
"Do it here."
"You can't hold me prisoner."
"The police are already on their way."
Her face hardened.
Downstairs, Ethan began crying again.
Lily moved toward him at once.
Victor followed, but halfway down the staircase, his phone buzzed again.
A file had arrived.
WEST_HALL_02_14.mp4
He opened it.
The video showed the hallway outside Ethan's nursery eleven nights earlier.
At 1:12 a.m., Serena entered.
At 1:14, Grant turned the camera away.
At 1:31, Serena came out carrying a small plastic bag.
Victor zoomed in.
Inside was Ethan's medicine bottle.
Lily whispered, "That was the night he was impossible to wake up the next morning."
Victor stopped breathing.
"You said he was teething."
"I thought he was. Serena told me she'd given him the dose on the label."
Victor opened another file.
Different night.
Serena again.
This time she carried a manila envelope into Victor's office.
Then a third file.
Serena and Grant stood outside the library arguing.
The video had no sound, but Serena clearly handed him cash.
Victor looked at Grant.
"How much?"
Grant said nothing.
"How much did she pay you to put my son at risk?"
"It wasn't about the boy."
Victor went still.
"What was it about?"
Grant's eyes moved to Serena.
Then to Lily.
"Olivia."
The name emptied the room of air.
Serena whispered, "Shut up."
Grant laughed bitterly.
"You want me to take all of this? No."
Victor stepped closer.
"What does my wife have to do with this?"
May you like
Grant swallowed.
"The security cameras were turned off the night she died too."
