Chapter 4 - What the Cameras Saw
Dante trusted almost no one.
That was why he discovered the missing footage.
At 2:13 the next morning, he sat alone in the security office reviewing recordings from the east wing.
Every camera worked.
Except the one outside his grandfather's room.
Its archive contained gaps.
Three minutes here.
Twenty minutes there.
Sometimes hours.
Someone had been deleting footage.
Dante called Marco Bellini, his security chief.
“Who has administrator access?”
“You. Me. Mrs. Gable.”
Dante looked at him.
Marco understood.
“I'll audit everything.”
“Quietly.”
Meanwhile, Nora discovered something stranger.
John wanted her to move his wheelchair.
“Window?”
Two blinks.
“Fireplace?”
Two.
“Desk?”
Two.
He stared at the bookshelf.
Nora wheeled him closer.
“Books?”
One blink.
She pointed.
John blinked until her finger reached a leather-bound copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.
Nora pulled it out.
Behind it was a small brass key.
She stared at him.
“You've been hiding things?”
His eyes almost smiled.
The key opened a drawer in his desk.
Inside was an old phone.
Not a smartphone.
A tiny digital recorder.
And a sealed envelope addressed in shaky handwriting.
DANTE.
Nora didn't open it.
She brought everything directly to him.
Dante read the letter standing beside the fireplace.
His grandfather had written it six years earlier, shortly after the stroke that damaged his speech.
The handwriting deteriorated toward the end.
But the message was clear.
If anything happens to me, do not trust the medical reports. Your father's death was not what they told you.
Dante read that sentence three times.
His father, Alessandro, had supposedly died in a highway accident.
Brake failure.
A tragedy.
The investigation had found no evidence of sabotage.
Dante looked toward John.
“You knew?”
John blinked once.
“Who killed him?”
John's breathing changed.
His fingers shook violently.
Nora crouched beside him.
“Don't force it.”
Dante's grief became anger.
“I've waited five years.”
“And he's been trapped inside his body for five years.”
Dante looked at her.
Nora didn't lower her eyes.
“Give him a minute.”
No employee spoke to Dante Moretti that way.
But Dante did.
He waited.
John finally looked toward the recorder.
Marco found an adapter.
The first recordings contained nothing unusual.
Then came a conversation dated six years earlier.
Alessandro's voice.
And another man.
Alessandro said, “You move against my family again, Victor, and we're finished.”
The second voice replied, “Family? Your father should have died years ago.”
Dante stopped breathing.
Victor Hale.
A former Moretti financial adviser.
And Brody Hale's father.
When Nora heard the name, she nearly dropped the recorder.
“Hale?”
Dante turned.
“You know him?”
“My baby's father is Brody Hale.”
Silence swallowed the room.
Dante stared at her.
Marco reached instinctively inside his jacket.
Nora stepped backward.
“No. Whatever you're thinking, no.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I didn't know there was anything to tell!”
John made a harsh sound.
Everyone turned.
He was staring at Nora.
Then he lifted his trembling hand.
Slowly, painfully, he pointed at her stomach.
Then at Dante.
Then shook his head.
“No?” Dante asked.
One blink.
John pointed toward Nora again.
Then touched his own chest.
Dante frowned.
“You trust her?”
One blink.
Nora's eyes filled.
Dante looked at the frightened pregnant woman standing in front of him.
If she had been sent by Victor Hale, she had played the strangest possible game.
She had secretly fed an old man no one considered important.
Opened his curtains.
Changed his bedding.
Questioned his medication.
And handed Dante evidence she could easily have destroyed.
“She stays,” Dante said.
Marco nodded.
But outside the half-open door, someone else had been listening.
Mrs. Gable.
And that night, she sent one message.
They found the recording.
May you like
Victor Hale's response arrived seconds later.
Then move the timetable forward.
