Chapter 4 - The Missing Ten Minutes
The banquet hall had changed owners twice in five years.
The current owner thought I was wasting my time.
“We replace cameras every few years,” he said. “Anything that old is long gone.”
Rachel disagreed.
“Not necessarily.”
The building’s security system had once backed up footage to an off-site server.
After several calls and one court order, investigators located the archived data.
Most of it was intact.
I watched the footage in a conference room with Rachel, two investigators, Marcus, and Clara.
Leo wasn’t there.
I refused to make him relive it before I knew exactly what we were dealing with.
At 3:09 p.m., Clara entered the banquet hall holding Leo’s hand.
He looked tiny.
At 3:14, an older man approached.
The camera angle only caught his back.
Gray hair.
Dark suit.
Gold ring.
I leaned toward the screen.
“Pause it.”
The investigator froze the frame.
The ring carried a symbol.
An M surrounded by laurel leaves.
My family crest.
Only six of those rings had ever been made.
My grandfather gave them to his sons.
One later came to me.
One went to my uncle.
One had belonged to my father.
I looked down at my own bare hand.
I hadn’t worn mine in years.
“Keep playing.”
The man handed Clara a black vest.
She argued.
No audio.
But I could see it.
Her head shook.
His finger pointed toward Leo.
Clara grabbed the man’s arm.
He pulled away.
Then he leaned close to her face.
Whatever he said made her freeze.
A minute later, Clara put the vest on Leo.
My hands curled into fists.
For the next three hours, I watched my son carry trays.
He stumbled twice.
An employee tried to take one tray from him.
The gray-haired man stopped the employee.
At 6:37, Leo dropped a glass.
It shattered.
He bent to pick it up.
A piece cut his finger.
Clara rushed toward him.
The man grabbed her arm.
My chair scraped backward.
“Who is he?”
Clara covered her mouth.
“Tell me.”
She shook her head.
Then the video reached 6:41.
The screen went black.
6:42.
Black.
6:43.
Black.
All the way to 6:51.
Then the footage returned.
I walked through the front doors.
Leo was beside Clara.
His jacket had been changed.
His hand was bandaged.
He ran toward me.
And I remembered exactly what happened next.
I knelt.
He hugged me.
I asked if he was okay.
Clara answered for him.
“He broke a glass playing around.”
I had believed her.
God help me, I had believed her.
The investigator stopped the recording.
“The missing segment was manually removed.”
“Can you recover it?”
“Maybe.”
Clara pushed away from the table.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
“No more.”
I stood.
“We’re past that.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then make me understand.”
Her tears came fast now.
“I was trying to keep him from taking Leo.”
“Who?”
She shook her head wildly.
“I can’t.”
I stepped closer.
“You watched my son suffer.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Then say his name.”
She stared at me.
For a moment, I thought she finally would.
Instead, the investigator’s laptop chimed.
He looked down.
“What?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Then he turned the screen toward me.
“We recovered twenty-three seconds.”
The image was grainy.
Leo stood near the service hallway.
The gray-haired man was kneeling in front of him.
May you like
And when he turned toward the camera, I forgot how to breathe.
Because I knew that face.
