Chapter Eight — The Missing Twenty Minutes

For several seconds, I could only stare at the photograph on Marcus’s phone.

Theodore Vale.

My father.

Standing beside Daniel Kerr three days before the man turned up dead beneath Vale Tower.

Ronan broke the silence first.

“Are you sure the scan is accurate?”

Marcus nodded.

“Ninety-nine point two percent.”

I looked up.

“That is not an answer. I asked if you were sure.”

“It is him.”

The stairwell suddenly felt too narrow.

My father had told me Daniel Kerr should have been dead twelve years ago.

He had acted shocked to see the body.

Now security records placed them together inside the building.

Three days ago.

Ronan watched me carefully.

“What time did they enter?”

Marcus scrolled.

“Six twelve in the evening.”

I remembered Tuesday.

I had left my office at six for dinner.

My father knew that.

Of course he did.

He knew my schedule better than most of my staff.

“What floor?”

Marcus hesitated.

“Forty-two.”

My floor.

Something inside me went very still.

Ronan’s expression hardened.

“That places them there two minutes before Kerr entered the corridor where the cameras went down.”

I looked at Marcus.

“How long was the outage?”

“Twenty-three minutes.”

“Not the garage. My floor.”

“Twenty-three.”

Ronan took the phone from him.

“Show me the timestamps.”

Marcus did.

The first frame showed my father and Daniel entering the elevator at 6:12 p.m.

The next available footage from my corridor resumed at 6:35.

Nothing between.

No exits.

No visitors.

No record of what happened in those twenty-three minutes.

My heartbeat slowed into something cold and deliberate.

“Who disabled the cameras?”

“We don’t know.”

“Who had administrative access?”

“Security command, executive IT, Chairman’s Office.”

I laughed once.

There it was again.

Chairman’s Office.

The same authorization attached to Daniel’s visits.

The same office that had apparently brought him to my floor.

Ronan handed the phone back.

“You need to assume your father was involved.”

I turned on him.

“Careful.”

“I am being careful.”

“You are accusing Theodore Vale of sabotaging his own son.”

“I am saying the evidence keeps walking toward him.”

“My father built my entire identity to protect me.”

Ronan’s eyes sharpened.

“Did he?”

The question irritated me instantly.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means hiding you and protecting you are not necessarily the same thing.”

I stepped closer.

“Do not pretend you understand my family.”

“I understand power.”

“So do I.”

“Then you should understand that powerful men rarely hide something for one reason.”

The heat inside me pulsed again, but anger drowned most of it.

Marcus cleared his throat.

“There is more.”

I turned toward him.

“What?”

“We checked the elevator logs.”

He held up the phone again.

“Your father’s badge registered at forty-two at 6:14.”

“And Daniel?”

“Same.”

“Then?”

Marcus swallowed.

“At 6:17, the access system records both badges opening your private suite.”

My blood went cold.

The room seemed to tilt.

The private suite contained the locked cabinet.

The cabinet contained my emergency medication.

Ronan saw the answer on my face.

“That is where you kept it.”

I did not respond.

I did not need to.

Marcus looked between us.

“What exactly was inside that suite?”

“Nothing you need to know.”

His expression tightened.

“Sir, if this connects to a homicide—”

“I said enough.”

Silence fell.

I hated shutting Marcus out.

But twenty-seven years of secrecy did not disappear simply because tonight had become inconvenient.

Ronan leaned toward me.

“If they accessed the cabinet that night, then your father may have watched Kerr switch the cartridges.”

“Or Kerr may have entered after my father left.”

“Then where is the footage proving that?”

“There isn’t any.”

“Exactly.”

I wanted to hit him.

Not because he was wrong.

Because he was making it impossible to defend the man who had raised me.

Marcus interrupted again.

“There is one more problem.”

Ronan looked at him.

“You enjoy those words.”

“I don’t.”

Marcus swiped to another screen.

“The system recorded a manual override at 6:18.”

“By whom?” I asked.

“No identity.”

“That is impossible.”

“Not with root access.”

Ronan frowned.

“Who has root access?”

Marcus took too long to answer.

I already knew.

“The chairman.”

“Yes.”

My jaw tightened.

“And?”

Marcus looked uncomfortable.

“And you.”

Ronan turned toward me.

I stared at Marcus.

“My credentials were used?”

“Technically.”

“What does technically mean?”

“The override was made under your executive profile, but from a terminal inside Chairman Vale’s office.”

The silence that followed was brutal.

Someone had used my identity.

From my father’s office.

To erase the cameras outside my private suite.

Ronan’s voice became quiet.

“That gives them both motive and cover.”

“It gives us nothing until we know who touched the terminal.”

“You keep moving the line.”

“Because I prefer evidence to convenient conclusions.”

“So do I.”

“Good.”

I took Marcus’s phone.

“Pull terminal authentication data. Fingerprint, retinal scan, device signature, whatever exists.”

“I already requested it.”

“When?”

“Before I came down here.”

I looked at him.

For the first time that night, I felt something close to gratitude.

“Good.”

A message appeared on his screen almost immediately.

Marcus read it.

Then his face changed.

“What?”

He did not answer.

“Marcus.”

He handed me the phone.

The authentication report was short.

Too short.

BIOMETRIC VERIFICATION: DISABLED.

I stared at it.

“Who disabled it?”

Marcus scrolled.

Another line appeared.

ADMINISTRATIVE AUTHORIZATION: ADRIAN VALE.

My stomach dropped.

Ronan moved closer.

“You didn’t do that.”

“No.”

“Can you prove it?”

I looked at him.

“Can you prove you were invited to that ballroom by accident?”

His expression tightened.

Fair.

None of us could prove anything anymore.

Theodore’s involvement.

Ronan’s appearance.

My credentials.

Daniel Kerr.

Everything pointed somewhere and nowhere at once.

Marcus’s phone vibrated again.

Another security report.

He opened it.

This time, he went completely still.

“What now?” Ronan asked.

Marcus looked at me.

“We recovered part of the deleted corridor footage.”

My pulse jumped.

“Show me.”

“It’s damaged.”

“I don’t care.”

He opened the clip.

Static filled most of the screen.

Then an image appeared.

6:24 p.m.

My private corridor.

The footage lasted only six seconds.

Daniel Kerr emerged from my suite carrying a silver medical case.

He looked over his shoulder.

Someone followed him out.

My father.

I felt the floor disappear beneath me.

Then the frame glitched.

Theodore turned toward the camera.

His lips moved.

No audio.

The image froze.

Ronan leaned closer.

“Can you read what he said?”

Marcus enlarged the frame.

I stared at my father’s mouth.

Three words.

I knew them before Marcus said them.

“Change the dose.”

My blood turned cold.

The clip ended.

For several seconds, none of us spoke.

Then another recovered fragment loaded automatically.

This one was timestamped 6:31.

Daniel Kerr stood alone beside the elevator.

He looked directly into the camera.

And held up a piece of paper.

One handwritten sentence filled the screen.

HE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT HIS FATHER MADE HIM FOR.