Chapter 12 - Seven Minutes of Darkness
The cameras remained dark for seven minutes.
Those seven minutes felt like an hour.
Daniel rushed to the electrical room.
I called Julian.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then the feeds returned.
Chloe was standing beside the dining table.
Julian was gone.
The folder had disappeared.
I drove to the mansion.
I found him in his father’s study.
“You scared me half to death.”
He looked up.
“I’m sorry.”
“What happened?”
“Chloe asked me to sign.”
“Did you?”
He held up the folder.
“No.”
Relief hit me so hard I had to sit.
“Then why did the cameras fail?”
His expression changed.
“I thought Daniel did it.”
Daniel entered behind me.
“I didn’t.”
Julian frowned.
We checked the system logs.
The shutdown had been manual.
Someone inside the house had accessed the service panel.
Elena, Luis, Rosa, Daniel, and Julian all had codes.
Chloe did not.
Unless someone gave one to her.
For the first time, our plan had a hole.
A serious one.
Julian looked at Daniel.
“Who knew we were recording her?”
“Only us.”
“And Mom.”
“And Elena.”
I hated what that implied.
One of the people we trusted might be helping Richard.
Elena appeared in the doorway.
Her face was pale.
“I need to tell you something.”
Julian looked at her.
“What?”
“My access card is missing.”
“When did you notice?”
“Ten minutes ago.”
“Who could have taken it?”
She hesitated.
“Miss Chloe hugged me before dinner.”
Julian blinked.
“Hugged you?”
“She apologized.”
“She said she wanted to start over.”
I almost laughed at the cruelty of it.
Chloe had humiliated Elena for months.
Then one fake apology gave her enough proximity to steal the card.
Julian looked relieved.
I wasn’t.
Something still felt wrong.
I examined the shutdown log.
The card used belonged to Elena.
But the security panel required two things.
A card.
And a four-digit code.
Chloe might steal one.
She could not steal the other by hugging someone.
Unless she had been watching.
Or someone had told her.
Then Daniel noticed a second entry.
Another card had opened the service corridor thirty seconds earlier.
He enlarged the screen.
The card belonged to me.
I stared at the number.
“That’s impossible.”
My card was inside my purse.
I checked.
It was gone.
May you like
And suddenly Chloe was not the only person who had been close enough to take it.
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