Chapter 7 - The Camera Without A Blind Spot.
By the time firefighters reached Vale House, smoke was pouring from the east wing.
Adrian watched the live security feed from the hospital command room.
He refused to leave Emma and Noah unprotected.
Detective Ortiz drove to the estate with a warrant and a digital forensics team.
The fire had begun inside the old library.
That was exactly where the red room was hidden.
Someone had not tried to burn the house.
Someone had tried to burn one room.
Rafael stood behind Adrian with both arms folded.
Mason waited near the door under Rafael's watch.
Trust inside the room had become a limited resource.
The hospital monitors displayed camera feeds from the hallway, stairwell, elevators, loading dock, and parking entrance.
Adrian had ordered every angle recorded locally and off-site.
"No blind spots," he said.
Rafael nodded.
"Not anymore."
Noah slept in the adjoining family room with a guard outside the door.
Emma's breathing remained steady.
Adrian had not slept at all.
Ortiz called from Vale House.
"The fire suppression system contained most of it."
"The red room?"
"We found the entrance."
Adrian gripped the phone.
"And?"
"Empty shelves, scorched cabinets, and one safe that was opened before the fire."
"Opened how?"
"With a key."
Adrian looked toward Emma's purse.
The missing brass key.
"Anything survive?"
"Maybe more than whoever started the fire expected."
Ortiz sent a photograph.
Inside a blackened wall cavity, investigators had found a small security camera.
Its lens faced directly toward the hidden red room door.
Adrian frowned.
"That camera isn't part of the house system."
"Exactly."
"Who installed it?"
Ortiz sent a second image.
A tiny label on the camera read EV-01.
Emma Vale.
Adrian almost laughed from sheer disbelief.
Emma had built her own surveillance system because she did not trust the family cameras.
The camera's memory transmitted wirelessly to an external receiver.
Investigators were searching for it.
Rafael looked at the image.
"She was ahead of them."
"She was ahead of me too."
The statement tasted bitter.
Emma had been fighting a private war while Adrian was negotiating acquisitions and telling her Victor was merely arrogant.
A soft sound came from the hospital room.
Adrian returned to Emma's bedside.
Her hand shifted beneath the blanket.
Her eyes remained closed.
"I'm finding it," he whispered.
"Whatever you were trying to show me, I'm finding it."
A movement on the hallway monitor caught Rafael's attention.
A hospital technician pushed a linen cart toward the restricted corridor.
He stopped at the security checkpoint.
The guard scanned his badge.
The screen flashed green.
Rafael leaned closer.
"That badge shouldn't clear this floor."
Adrian looked up.
The technician smiled at the guard.
Then the linen cart shifted.
A hand appeared briefly beneath the hanging sheet.
Someone was hiding inside.
Rafael was moving before Adrian spoke.
He radioed the corridor guards and locked Emma's door from inside.
Mason stepped toward the monitor.
"I know that technician."
Adrian gave him a cold look.
"You know everybody today."
"His name is Daniel Pike."
"Corporate security?"
"Former subcontractor."
On the monitor, two guards stopped the cart.
Daniel abandoned it and ran.
The hidden passenger burst from beneath the sheets and sprinted toward the stairwell.
Rafael ordered the floor sealed.
The first man was captured near the elevators.
The second vanished into the fire stairs.
Adrian watched camera feeds switch one after another.
Third floor.
Second floor.
Loading dock.
Nothing.
"Where did he go?"
Rafael studied the screens.
"There is no exit without a camera."
Then one feed went black.
Parking Level Two.
A single camera had lost power.
Adrian felt anger rise.
"You said no blind spots."
"There weren't any."
Rafael grabbed the radio.
"Someone cut that camera from inside the building."
Mason stared at the black screen.
"There is a service tunnel behind that wall."
Rafael turned on him.
"How do you know?"
Mason hesitated.
Adrian understood before he answered.
"Because you helped design the hospital security plan."
Mason nodded.
The truth landed heavily.
The hospital had been chosen because Vale security had once consulted on its expansion.
Mason knew every restricted passage.
So did anyone who had stolen his old project files.
Rafael's radio crackled.
"Movement in the service tunnel."
A second voice shouted.
Then came a gunshot-like bang that made Noah wake screaming in the adjoining room.
Adrian ran to him while Rafael kept the door locked.
Noah clung to his father.
"Is Mom okay?"
"She's okay."
Adrian held him tightly.
The radio crackled again.
"Suspect in custody."
Rafael exhaled.
"Who is he?"
The answer came after several seconds.
"Sir, you need to see this."
Rafael opened the security photograph on his phone.
The captured man was not a stranger.
May you like
Adrian recognized him as Owen Grant, Victor's personal driver.
In his pocket, police found the missing brass key from Emma's purse.
