Chapter 15 - The Missing Minute
Daniel stared at the evidence timeline until nearly dawn.
Ethan’s memory card contained several clips from the day of the fall, but there was a gap.
One minute and forty-two seconds.
The clip before the gap showed Margaret entering the foyer with the leather folder.
The clip after it showed Olivia standing near the stairs.
The actual push had not been recorded.
Ethan had seen it with his own eyes, but the camera had been blocked by the upstairs wall.
“What is supposed to be in the missing minute?” Daniel asked Olivia during a monitored call.
“I don’t know exactly,” she said. “Simon told me he copied Ethan’s files when he took the tablet. He said one of them could ruin everything.”
“You expect me to trust you now?”
“No.”
The answer surprised him.
“I expect you to verify me.”
Olivia’s voice cracked.
“I’ve lied so much that even the truth sounds like another trick. I know that.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Why did you push her?”
Silence.
“Olivia.”
“I panicked.”
It was the first time she had admitted it to him.
Daniel’s chest tightened.
“She had the folder. She said she was going to you. I grabbed it. She pulled away.”
“And then?”
Olivia began crying.
“I saw my whole life disappearing.”
“So you shoved a sixty-eight-year-old woman down a staircase.”
“I did.”
Daniel gripped the edge of the table.
“I didn’t plan it. That doesn’t make it better. I know.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
She took a shaky breath.
“The missing file is on Simon’s private server. He called it Vault Nine.”
Detective Reed, listening beside Daniel, wrote the words down.
“Where?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t know. But he once said he kept leverage where no warrant would find it.”
The line clicked.
A guard announced that time was nearly up.
Olivia spoke quickly.
“Daniel, there’s one more thing. The night Simon came to the house, Ethan wasn’t the only one recording.”
Daniel frowned.
“Who else?”
“Your mother.”
The call ended.
May you like
Daniel looked at Reed.
Margaret’s phone had never been found after the fall.
