Chapter 9 - The Missing Forty Seconds
Detective Ortiz discovered that Vanguard’s accounting records had been altered repeatedly.
Payments were routed through a company called Iron Harbor Wellness. The company listed a vacant office as its headquarters and had no employees.
More concerning was a video file recovered from Ryan’s laptop.
The recording showed a training session from eight months earlier. A fighter named Marcus Hill became disoriented after being struck during sparring.
A coach attempted to stop the session.
Ryan ordered it to continue.
Then the footage skipped forward forty seconds.
When the video resumed, Marcus was on the floor and an ambulance had been called.
The missing section had been deleted.
Marcus had left the state shortly afterward.
Public records showed that Vanguard paid him a private settlement. The agreement prevented him from discussing the incident.
Claire stared at the screen.
“Can we contact him?”
“We can try,” Lena said. “But he may be afraid.”
Elias noticed a reflection in the training room mirror.
During the missing event, someone had been recording with a phone from outside the camera’s main view.
“There may be another copy,” he said.
Lena enlarged the reflection.
The person holding the phone wore a red coaching jacket.
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Only three Vanguard employees had been issued that jacket.
One of them was Noah Bennett.
