The Missing Footage
Chapter 07 - The Missing Footage
Caleb spun around, clutching the brass key. For a moment neither he nor Nora moved. Then he accused her of following him. Nora replied that the study had belonged to her mother before it became a family tomb, and she had as much reason to be there as anyone.
The music cabinet was empty.
A pale rectangle in the dust showed that a ledger-sized object had recently been removed. Caleb swore he had not touched it. Nora did not know whether to believe him, but his surprise looked real.
They returned to the hall and found Victor waiting at the far end. He asked calmly whether they had discovered anything. Caleb said no. Victor’s eyes remained on his son a second too long.
The next morning, Daniel reviewed the kitchen security system. The camera Nora had trusted during her humiliation had gone offline exactly four minutes before Caleb entered and returned three minutes after Arthur arrived. The outage was not technical. Someone with administrator privileges had disabled it remotely.
Caleb’s credentials were used.
He insisted Victor had access to his passwords. Victor expressed wounded disbelief and suggested Caleb was panicking. The alliance between father and son began to fracture.
Rose then revealed what the camera had missed. From the pantry, she had seen Caleb slip the silver watch into Nora’s apron before dropping the plate. She had not spoken because Victor controlled employee pensions and had threatened staff members before. Nora asked her to make a formal statement only if she felt safe. Arthur immediately arranged independent legal protection for every employee who cooperated.
The watch itself provided another clue. Its serial number showed Caleb had purchased it under a secondary account two weeks earlier. It was not a family heirloom, as he had claimed. It was a prop.
Caleb’s shame turned into anger. He admitted planting the watch but insisted the idea had come from Victor. His father had said Nora was a professional fraudster and that frightening her away would protect Arthur.
“You still chose to do it,” Nora said.
Caleb lowered his eyes. “I know.”
It was not an apology, but it was the first honest sentence he had given her.
Daniel traced the camera shutdown to a tablet registered to Victor’s private office. Before they could secure it, the device vanished. So did Victor.
Security found his car near the east gate, abandoned. In his room, the flowers he had brought Nora lay crushed in a wastebasket. Beneath them was a burned scrap of paper bearing one legible line:
May you like
Duplicate ledger—boathouse safe.
Arthur looked toward the dark windows. A storm was moving over the lake, and the old boathouse stood beyond the trees.
