Chapter 3 - The Man Behind the Security Desk
My mother denied knowing anything about the damaged footage.
Too quickly.
Too smoothly.
By sunrise, she had left the hospital.
At seven thirty, Detective Reed returned.
This time he brought a laptop.
"We recovered one section."
He placed the computer on the table.
My pulse climbed.
The footage showed the ballroom approximately twenty minutes before Preston announced his phone was missing.
Guests moved between tables.
Servers carried champagne.
Children ran near the dance floor.
Then Sophie appeared.
She was sitting exactly where I remembered.
Beside me.
Preston was near the head table.
He looked around.
Then he removed his phone from his inside jacket pocket.
My breath stopped.
He walked behind our table.
The camera angle became partially blocked by a decorative flower arrangement.
For three seconds, only his shoulders were visible.
Then he stepped away.
His phone was no longer in his hand.
Detective Reed paused the recording.
"That is important."
"But it doesn't show him putting it in Sophie's jacket."
"No."
I felt frustration rise.
"Then it's not enough."
"By itself, maybe not."
He opened another file.
"This came from a hallway camera."
The recording showed Preston walking into a small service corridor.
Caroline followed him.
They argued.
There was no audio.
Then Caroline handed him something.
A small rectangular object.
A second phone.
Preston placed it inside his tuxedo.
"Why would he have two phones?"
Detective Reed asked.
"I don't know."
Neither did I.
But someone else did.
My anonymous contact.
I finally replied.
Who are you?
The response came less than a minute later.
Daniel Cho. Night security supervisor.
I remembered the man who had spoken to police outside the ambulance.
Another message appeared.
I copied part of the footage before someone logged into the server remotely.
Then another.
Your brother wasn't only trying to frame Sophie. He was trying to create a reason to remove both of you from the wedding before something else happened.
I stared at the screen.
Before what?
Daniel asked me to meet him in the hospital cafeteria.
Detective Reed insisted on coming.
Twenty minutes later, we found Daniel sitting in the far corner with a paper coffee cup.
He looked exhausted.
"I've worked at Whitmore fourteen years."
He glanced at the detective.
"Never seen anyone try to wipe footage that fast."
"Who accessed the system?"
Daniel hesitated.
"The login credentials belonged to the hotel's general manager."
Detective Reed leaned forward.
"Did the manager make the deletion?"
"No."
"How do you know?"
"Because I was standing beside him when the alert came through."
I felt my stomach drop.
"Then somebody had his password."
Daniel nodded.
"Or somebody he trusted had remote access."
He slid a USB drive across the table.
"This is what I copied."
"What is on it?"
"Something from forty-five minutes before the phone accusation."
He looked directly at me.
"Your father meeting privately with the bride."
My father?
Daniel continued.
"They thought the service hallway camera was turned off."
"It wasn't."
"What were they doing?"
His eyes dropped toward the USB drive.
"You should watch it yourself."
Detective Reed opened the file.
There was no sound.
But there didn't need to be.
My father was holding a thick white envelope.
Caroline opened it.
Inside were photographs.
She examined them.
Then she began crying.
My father grabbed her wrist.
Caroline pulled away.
A second later, Preston entered the corridor.
He saw the photographs.
His face transformed.
Then he snatched the envelope from Caroline.
One photo fell to the floor.
Daniel zoomed in.
The image was grainy.
But clear enough.
It showed Preston kissing another woman.
Not Caroline.
And in the bottom corner of the photograph was a date.
May you like
Three days before the wedding.
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