Chapter 4 - The Papers in the Handbag
Adrian Cross arrived at the hospital at 10:42 p.m.
He wore a dark overcoat over his business clothes and carried no umbrella, though rain had begun falling heavily outside.
Mara saw him through the glass panel before he entered.
He looked older than he had that morning.
More tired.
More frightened.
Grant asked Lena to remain with Mara while he spoke to Adrian in the corridor.
Mara could not hear every word, but she watched Adrian’s body language.
He repeatedly looked toward the elevators.
He refused to sit.
When Grant showed him the silver flash drive, Adrian’s face became still.
After several minutes, Grant brought him into the room.
Adrian stood at the foot of Mara’s bed.
“I heard about Vanessa,” he said.
“Did Calvin call you?”
“No.”
“Did my mother?”
“No.”
“Then how did you hear?”
Adrian did not answer.
Grant closed the door.
“We recovered a recording of you discussing Lake Archer with Calvin Voss and Elaine Bennett.”
Adrian looked toward the flash drive.
“That recording was taken out of context.”
“Everyone keeps saying that tonight,” Grant replied.
Mara studied him.
Adrian had worked for her father for seventeen years. He attended every family birthday dinner. He taught Mara how to read company balance sheets when she was sixteen. After Thomas died, he was the only executive who privately supported Mara’s claim that the trust had been changed.
Yet his voice was on the recording.
“Did you know my brakes would fail?” Mara asked.
“No.”
“Did you know someone changed the road barrier?”
Adrian looked at the floor.
“I knew Calvin hired a contractor.”
“For what?”
“He said it was related to a future insurance dispute.”
Mara felt anger rising beneath the medication and exhaustion.
“You are the chief financial officer. Why would you approve a payment without knowing what it was for?”
“I didn’t approve it.”
“The invoice says Vanessa approved it.”
“She cannot authorize that amount alone.”
“Then who added the second authorization?”
Adrian remained silent.
Grant said, “The financial system should show us.”
Adrian looked toward the detective.
“The system was updated last month. Historical access logs may no longer exist.”
“That sounds convenient.”
“It was a planned update.”
Mara remembered something.
“The blue envelope.”
Adrian’s eyes moved back to her.
“What about it?”
“It was missing from my handbag.”
“I don’t know anything about your envelope.”
“You knew June gave me the amendment.”
His silence answered before he did.
Mara pushed herself higher against the pillow despite the pain in her side.
“How did you know?”
“Your father told me June had a copy.”
“My father has been dead for two years.”
Adrian’s mouth tightened.
Grant stepped closer.
“When did Thomas Bennett tell you that?”
“A week before he died.”
“That still doesn’t explain how you knew Mara had contacted June recently.”
Adrian looked toward the door.
“I should speak with an attorney.”
Grant nodded.
“That is your right.”
Adrian moved to leave.
Mara stopped him.
“My father trusted you.”
Adrian’s hand remained on the door handle.
“He trusted the wrong people.”
“Was one of them you?”
Adrian looked back, and for a moment Mara saw something more complicated than guilt in his expression.
Fear.
Not fear of the police.
Fear of someone outside the room.
“You need to leave this hospital,” he said quietly.
Grant straightened.
“Is that a threat?”
“No.”
Adrian looked directly at Mara.
“The accident failed. The monitor failed. They will not make a third mistake.”
He opened the door.
Two officers were waiting outside.
Grant instructed them to accompany Adrian while arrangements were made for a formal interview.
Before they took him away, Adrian spoke one last sentence.
“Ask Lena why Camera Twelve was installed last month.”
The door closed behind him.
Mara turned toward Lena.
The nurse looked genuinely confused.
“I don’t know what he means.”
“Was the camera new?” Grant asked.
“Yes. Several cameras were replaced after a security review.”
“Who ordered the review?”
“The hospital board.”
“Which member?”
“I don’t know.”
Grant called the security supervisor.
The answer came ten minutes later.
The camera outside Mara’s room had been installed as part of a special upgrade funded through a private donation.
The donor was the Bennett Family Foundation.
Elaine controlled that foundation.
Mara stared at the camera.
Her mother had paid to install the device that recorded Vanessa’s threat.
It made no sense.
Unless the camera had never been intended to protect Mara.
Grant searched the flash drive again.
One photograph showed Mara’s damaged handbag resting on a table after the crash. The blue envelope was visible inside.
The photograph’s metadata indicated it had been taken in a private storage room at the hospital, nearly an hour after Mara arrived.
Another photograph, taken eleven minutes later, showed the handbag open.
The blue envelope was gone.
The reflection in a nearby metal cabinet showed part of the person taking the envelope.
A gray suit sleeve.
A silver watch.
Calvin Voss wore the same watch every day.
“That proves Calvin took it,” Mara said.
“It proves someone dressed like him was in the room,” Grant replied. “We still need the original footage.”
Lena looked at the time.
“The storage area is covered by hospital cameras.”
Grant contacted security again.
The footage from the night of Mara’s accident had also been deleted.
Every camera near Mara had failed in a different way.
Every failure benefited Calvin.
Mara looked at Lena.
“Adrian said to ask why Camera Twelve was installed.”
Lena moved closer to the wall beneath the camera.
“What are you thinking?”
“The camera was paid for by my mother. Calvin’s firm had access to the system. Someone deleted the main recording almost immediately.”
Grant followed her reasoning.
“You think the camera was installed to monitor you.”
“Not only me.”
Mara looked around the room.
“Everyone who came to see me.”
Lena lowered her voice.
“Then they may have seen us open the flash drive.”
At that exact moment, the lights went out.
The room fell into darkness.
An emergency light flickered above the door.
May you like
From the corridor came the sound of running footsteps.
Then someone tried to turn Mara’s door handle from the outside.
