Chapter 7 - The Video That Should Not Exist
Lena had hidden in the basement laundry room during the search.
She had not been taken.
She had seen Margaret return through the service hall and heard her speaking with someone over the second phone.
Then Lena slipped out through a maintenance exit.
“Why didn’t you call the police?” Ava asked.
“Because Mrs. Margaret said Detective Brooks was already bought.”
Brooks, standing beside the hospital bed, raised an eyebrow.
Lena continued.
“I didn’t believe her. But I was scared.”
“Where are you now?”
“At my sister’s.”
Brooks wrote the address and sent officers.
“Tell me about the crash video,” Ava said.
Lena took a breath.
“Mr. Pike kept saying, ‘The garage file is the only thing that can bury us.’ I heard him say it twice.”
Ethan leaned closer to the phone.
“What garage?”
“Your wife’s company. Monroe Biologics.”
Ava frowned.
The underground garage had security cameras.
After the crash, the company’s IT department told investigators the camera near Ava’s parking space had malfunctioned.
Brooks asked, “Who controlled the system?”
Ava answered immediately.
“Victor Hale. Head of corporate security.”
She had not seen him since the accident.
He resigned three weeks later.
Brooks looked him up.
His employment file showed a forwarding address in Vermont.
His bank records, obtained under warrant, showed something more useful.
Three days after Ava’s crash, Victor Hale received $180,000 from a consulting company.
That company was owned by a trust represented by Conrad Pike.
Ethan stood.
“I’m going to Vermont.”
“No,” Brooks said. “You’re staying here.”
“Someone paid him to erase a video of my wife’s car.”
“And if he is involved, your face at his door will make him run.”
Brooks sent state police instead.
They found Victor Hale that evening.
He did not run.
He cried.
During a recorded interview, he admitted Pike had paid him to delete security footage.
“But I didn’t delete it,” he said.
Brooks called Ava immediately.
“He kept a copy.”
Ava’s heart pounded.
“Why?”
“Insurance. He was afraid Pike would turn on him.”
“Where is it?”
“In a safe-deposit box.”
The file arrived by secure transfer just after midnight.
Ava, Ethan, Brooks, and Lena watched together.
The video showed Ava’s SUV in the Monroe Biologics garage at 6:14 p.m. the evening before the crash.
A black sedan pulled in.
Margaret stepped out.
Then Conrad Pike.
Pike opened Ava’s hood.
Margaret stood watch.
For seven minutes, his body blocked the camera’s view.
Then both drove away.
No one spoke.
Ava felt something inside her go cold.
Ethan looked sick.
Brooks paused the video.
“There’s more.”
At 6:23 p.m., a third person walked into frame.
He approached Pike.
They shook hands.
Ava leaned toward the screen.
The man’s face was clear.
She knew him.
And Ethan did too.
May you like
It was Ava’s own uncle.
Martin Monroe.
