Chương 6
“With everyone.”
The kitchen became quiet.
A timer beeped from the oven.
Elena turned it off.
Neither of them moved immediately.
“I used to think money solved problems,” Adrian said.
Elena smiled slightly.
“Does it?”
“No.”
“What does it solve?”
He thought about it.
“Problems that money can actually reach.”
Elena nodded.
“That’s a lot smaller than people think.”
The next morning, Marcus called before Adrian had finished his coffee.
“We found something.”
Adrian stood immediately.
“What?”
“An access record.”
“Who?”
A pause.
Then Marcus answered.
“Not Lauren.”
Adrian looked toward the library.
“Then who?”
“Someone using Daniel Whitmore’s credentials.”
Adrian frowned.
“Daniel doesn’t work for me.”
“No.”
Marcus’s voice became more serious.
“But someone inside your company helped him.”
“Do you know who?”
“Not yet.”
Adrian looked at the mansion hallway.
The place felt different now.
Every door seemed to hold a question.
Every person seemed to have a reason for staying quiet.
Then Marcus added one more thing.
“There’s another problem.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
“What?”
“The footage from the library.”
“What about it?”
“It was edited.”
Adrian felt the room shift.
“Edited how?”
“Someone removed ten minutes.”
“Which ten minutes?”
Marcus was silent.
“The ten minutes before Lauren entered the room.”
Adrian did not answer immediately.
He looked at the empty coffee cup sitting on the kitchen counter.
He had poured it twenty minutes earlier and forgotten about it.
That small detail bothered him more than it should have.
For years, he had built his life around noticing everything.
Numbers.
Contracts.
Market changes.
People’s expressions in meetings.
And somehow, the most important things had been happening inside his own house while he was looking somewhere else.
“Marcus,” he said carefully, “who edited it?”
“We don’t know.”
“Then how do you know it was edited?”
“Because the file structure is wrong.”
Adrian walked toward the window.
“What does that mean?”
“It means someone accessed the recording, removed a section, and saved it again.”
“Can you prove who?”
“Not yet.”
The answer irritated him.
Not because Marcus was failing.
Because reality was refusing to become simple.
“Can you recover the missing footage?”
“I’m working on it.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
There it was again.
The one answer he hated most.
“I need something before whoever did this realizes we know.”
Marcus became quiet.
That silence was enough.
“You think they already know.”
“I think someone who is careful enough to alter security footage is probably careful enough to notice unusual activity.”
Adrian looked toward the hallway.
The mansion suddenly felt too open.
Too many cameras.
Too many employees.
Too many places where someone could watch without being seen.
“Marcus.”
“Yes.”
“Do not tell anyone about this.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Not even the security team.”
“Especially not the security team.”
That answer surprised Adrian.
“Why?”
“Because the person who edited the footage may have had access to the security system.”
Adrian ended the call and stood alone in the kitchen.
A few seconds later, he heard footsteps.
Sophie appeared wearing pajamas even though it was late morning.
She held a stuffed rabbit under one arm.
The rabbit was missing one ear.
Adrian had noticed it before but never asked.
Now he wondered how many small things about the people around him he had ignored.
“Are you working?” Sophie asked.
“No.”
She looked at the phone in his hand.
“That looks like work.”
Adrian smiled slightly.
“You caught me.”
She walked closer.
“Are you mad?”
The question stopped him.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because grown-ups get quiet when they’re mad.”
He looked at her.
“Sometimes they get quiet when they’re scared too.”
Sophie considered that.
“Are you scared?”
He almost gave the automatic answer.
No.
Adults were supposed to say no.
But Sophie had spent the last few days surrounded by adults pretending.
“No,” he said slowly.
Then he corrected himself.
“Actually, yes.”
Her eyes widened slightly.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know what is true yet.”
Sophie looked down at her rabbit.
“My mommy says people lie when they’re scared.”
Adrian nodded.
“She’s right.”
“But Mrs. Lauren lies more.”
He did not respond.
Not because he disagreed.
Because he wondered how a three-year-old had learned something many adults spent decades avoiding.
“Why do you think that?” he asked.
Sophie touched the rabbit’s torn ear.
“Because she says sorry before she does bad things.”
Adrian frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“She says, ‘I’m sorry, but I have to.’”
The sentence stayed with him.
It sounded familiar.
Not the words.
The pattern.
People often apologized when they wanted permission to hurt someone.
That afternoon, Adrian returned to the library.
He did not know why he chose that room.
Maybe because the truth had started there.
Maybe because he needed to understand how something hidden in a wall had changed everything.
The bookshelf had been moved slightly during the investigation.
The brass vent cover sat on the table.
He picked it up.
It was lighter than he expected.
Inside the back edge, he noticed a small scratch.
Not random damage.
A mark.
He took a photograph and sent it to Marcus.
Then he searched the area around the vent.
There was nothing obvious.
No fingerprints.
No hidden compartment.
No dramatic discovery.
Just dust.
A small piece of blue thread caught near the edge.
Adrian stared at it.
He almost ignored it.
Then he remembered Sophie’s words.
People noticed things because they were looking at what others ignored.
He placed the thread into an evidence bag.
An hour later, Marcus arrived.
“You found something.”
“I found a piece of thread.”
Marcus looked at him.
“That’s either very important or completely useless.”
“I know.”
Marcus smiled faintly.
“That’s usually how investigations start.”
They examined the vent and the surrounding area.
The scratch turned out to match the edge of a small device.
Not a recording device.
Not exactly.
A storage unit.
Someone had attached something behind the vent temporarily.
Marcus looked at the wall.
May you like
“Someone wasn’t hiding something inside.”
“They were using this place.”
