Chapter 12 - The Forty-Seven Minutes
Nobody moved for one second.
Then Lucy tore free of me and ran.
“Lucy!”
She sprinted past the officers, through the lecture-room side door, and into the supply corridor.
Reed shouted, “Stop her!”
That was the wrong thing to shout.
Ortiz appeared behind the uniforms.
“Let her move.”
Lucy reached a linen cabinet bolted to the wall.
She dropped to her knees and pulled at the bottom panel.
It did not move.
Mara ran to her.
“Left side first.”
Lucy pressed the corner.
The panel popped loose.
Behind it sat a tiny encrypted USB drive in a plastic bag.
Reed stood up.
Ortiz aimed at him.
“Sit.”
He sat.
Mara handed me the drive.
“Rachel’s original.”
We plugged it into Ortiz’s evidence laptop.
One video.
Timestamp 9:26 p.m., three years earlier.
An ambulance interior filled the screen.
Rachel lay strapped to a stretcher.
Alive.
Eyes open.
Blood at her hairline.
My knees nearly gave.
Reed entered through the rear doors.
Younger by three years.
Same blue eyes.
Same calm hands.
Eleanor followed.
Rachel whispered something.
The audio was weak.
Ortiz raised the volume.
Reed said, “You should have stopped.”
Rachel coughed.
“You used Adrian.”
“He made it easy.”
Eleanor looked toward the ambulance doors.
“What if Shaw finds out?”
Reed replied, “He won’t.”
Rachel lifted her head.
She looked toward the hidden camera.
Her eyes focused.
Her lips moved.
Ortiz replayed it.
Still too low.
Again.
Filtered.
Rachel whispered:
“Adrian already knows.”
I stared at the screen.
“No.”
Mara’s face changed.
I turned to her.
“What does that mean?”
She did not answer.
“Mara.”
Her hands curled into fists.
“Rachel tried to tell you.”
“When?”
“Months before she died.”
“I would remember.”
“You remember the argument about foster placement records?”
My chest tightened.
Rachel standing in our kitchen.
Papers spread across the counter.
Me exhausted after a thirty-hour shift.
Her saying children were disappearing inside systems nobody audited properly.
Me telling her she was carrying work home again.
Me telling her Malcolm said she needed distance.
Mara watched recognition hit me.
“She told you enough to make you dangerous,” she said.
Reed laughed softly behind us.
“Not dangerous enough.”
Ortiz moved toward him.
Then every light in the wing went out.
Emergency red lamps came on.
May you like
Reed’s chair was empty.
