Chapter 4

"An investigation at the highest level?"

Mr. Levinsky stared at me as though I'd just said something insane.

"Laura, do you even understand what it means to bring in major crimes and forensic investigators? I can't believe you're doing all this over a bedsheet. Do you think you're some kind of detective?"

Kevin laughed, pointing his phone camera at me.

"Ms. Chapman, suspicion doesn't substitute for evidence," he said, his voice turning cold. "The police don't have a search warrant, and you have no authority to keep four students locked in their dorm room based on nothing more than your suspicions.

"If anything happens to my client, I will hold both the university and you personally liable."

The comments were flying so fast across the livestream that they were almost impossible to read.

"Has this dorm supervisor lost her mind?"

"She needs to be fired immediately."

"She's using students' lives to put on a show!"

At the same time, the crying behind the door grew louder.

"Kevin, please help me… I really can't breathe…"

The paramedic, Leon Wilkins, immediately urged everyone to hurry.

"We can't keep dragging this out," he said. "If one of the students develops respiratory alkalosis from hyperventilating, the consequences could be serious."

Everyone was pressuring me to hand over the keys, but I only tightened my grip.

Just then, Officer Martel took the inspection sheet from my hand. She studied me for a few seconds before pulling out her phone.

"Get the technical team up to the sixth floor," she ordered. "Recheck all the voice recordings, heat signatures, and communication data."

Mr. Levinsky was beside himself.

"Officer, she's just a dorm supervisor making a big deal out of nothing! Why are you going along with this?"

Officer Martel ignored him.

"If anything goes wrong, I'll take responsibility."

Kevin's smile froze. Soon, however, he adjusted his glasses and regained his composure.

"Fine. Run your tests," he said. "But I want the entire process livestreamed to prevent anyone from falsifying the results."

Ten minutes later, the technical team arrived.

They isolated the voice recordings from inside the room and ran them through voice comparison software.

The results confirmed that the voice matched Anna's and that the phone sending the messages was inside Room 617.

Another thermal scan still showed four human-shaped heat signatures.

All four students were accounted for, and everything appeared normal.

Mr. Levinsky let out a long sigh of relief, and the students gathered in the hallway erupted.

"Finished checking yet?"

"Can you finally open the door now?"

"Apologize, Ms. Chapman!"

"You owe everyone a public apology!"

Kevin held the test results up to his livestream camera.

"The police have confirmed that all four students are inside the room," he announced. "I'm formally demanding that the lockdown be lifted."

He turned to face me.

"So, Ms. Chapman, where exactly is this kidnapping you keep talking about?"

Several pairs of eyes turned toward me again.

I stared at the thermal images on the technician's screen, my heart sinking with every passing second.

Had I really been wrong?

Then I noticed something that didn't add up.

"Why haven't any of the four heat signatures moved?"

The technician paused, caught off guard.

More than 20 minutes had passed since the scan began. No matter how deeply someone slept, their breathing and even the slightest movements of their limbs would cause subtle changes in their thermal outline.

But the four figures on the screen looked as though they'd been nailed to their beds. Not even an arm had shifted.

Meanwhile, Anna was still crying behind the door. How could someone who was frightened, sobbing, and struggling to breathe remain completely motionless for 20 minutes?

I whipped around to look at Kevin, whose fingers tightened around his phone.

"Run a forensic examination of the area beneath the bed."

I pointed at the gap beneath the door to Room 617.

"Slide an endoscopic camera underneath and record the bed frame and the floor beneath Anna's bunk."

Officer Martel nodded.

A technician crouched down and carefully slid a slender camera beneath the door. The lens moved past the shoe rack before slowly turning toward Anna's bed.

The bedsheet hung so low that it nearly touched the floor.

As the image was magnified, several tiny black rubber fragments came into view along the edge of the bed.

Beside them lay two snapped nylon fibers.

A forensic investigator studied the screen for several seconds.

"The bedsheet has been under sustained downward tension, and the force is coming from beneath the bed."

He looked up, his expression grave.

"There's a fifth person under that bed."