Chapter 4 - What the Camera Saw
Andrew pressed the elevator button so hard his finger slipped.
“Open it.”
The catering manager fumbled with a key.
“Sir, it’s going to the loading level.”
“Then take me there.”
Lily backed away from the doors.
Rosa was trying to stand.
“Stay down,” Lily told her.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
A thin line of blood ran from Rosa’s elbow into her sleeve.
Andrew saw it.
Something in his face changed.
Not enough.
But something.
He turned to the manager.
“Call the police.”
Grant appeared in the corridor.
“Andrew, let’s not create a bigger scene.”
“A woman is hurt.”
“She fell.”
Rosa looked directly at him.
“Your guard pushed me.”
Grant’s mouth tightened.
Andrew stepped closer to his brother.
“Where’s the boy?”
“Being escorted off the property.”
“Call him back.”
“Andrew—”
“Now.”
A second elevator opened.
The loading supervisor came out, breathless.
“They’re downstairs.”
Andrew went with him.
Lily stayed with Rosa because somebody finally needed to.
She picked up the flash drive.
“What’s on this?”
Rosa looked toward the corridor.
“I don’t know everything.
Your mother gave me copies before the crash.”
“Copies of what?”
“Things she was afraid would disappear.”
Lily’s chest tightened.
“My mother trusted you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you come back?”
Rosa swallowed.
“I called.
I wrote.
I went to the front gate.”
Lily remembered the letters Grant had brought into her room.
Bills.
School forms.
Get-well cards.
Nothing from Rosa.
“You could’ve called me.”
“They took your phone.”
Lily looked away.
They had called it a break from social media.
A chance to heal without pressure.
Her world had become one bedroom, three adults, and a garden she needed permission to visit.
Downstairs, somebody shouted.
Then Andrew returned with Noah beside him.
The boy’s collar was stretched.
One cheek was red.
Andrew held the guard’s radio in his fist.
“He’s staying here,” he said.
Grant opened his mouth.
Andrew cut him off.
“You’re not.”
For a moment, neither brother moved.
Then Grant smiled.
“Of course.”
Lily had seen that smile before.
It meant he had already decided what to do next.
Andrew led them into the ballroom office and locked the door.
A security monitor showed the service corridor.
On the screen, Grant stood beside the elevator before the incident.
He leaned toward the guard.
Andrew turned up the audio.
His brother’s voice filled the little room.
May you like
“Get the boy outside.
Take whatever he’s carrying.”
