Chapter 12 - THE CAMERA THAT WAS NEVER THERE
Officer Ruiz reached for her radio.
I stopped her.
Holloway was watching through the phone.
Any visible movement could provoke him.
“The camera is not with me,” I said.
Holloway tightened his grip on Tanner.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Tanner hid it.”
“Then he will tell me where.”
Tanner stared into the phone.
His face was pale.
But he did not look broken.
“I swallowed it,” he said.
Holloway looked at him.
“You what?”
“I swallowed the camera.”
My heart lurched.
Then I saw Tanner blink twice.
It was another signal from our chess games.
A bluff.
Holloway shook him.
“Tell me the truth.”
“I did.”
“You are lying.”
Tanner lifted his chin.
“You told everyone I was crazy.”
“Maybe I am.”
Holloway struck the phone from its stand.
The image tilted.
For a moment, we saw only the roof.
Then Maeve’s voice came from the doorway behind us.
“He did not swallow anything.”
I turned.
She held the tiny chess camera between two fingers.
“Tanner slipped it into my coat before the deputy took him.”
Ruiz stared at her.
“How did you get here?”
“The deputy who transferred Tanner finally admitted the order came by text.”
“Not through the court system.”
Maeve placed the camera in an evidence bag.
“It has already uploaded the recording.”
“To where?” I asked.
“Tanner connected it to your home cloud account.”
Hope surged through me.
“Then Holloway cannot destroy the evidence.”
A voice came from the phone on the desk.
“I heard that.”
Holloway had picked up his device.
His face appeared again.
The calm judge was gone.
His eyes looked wild.
“You think one recording destroys thirty years of work?”
“It destroys you,” Ruiz said.
Holloway pulled Tanner closer to the roof’s edge.
“Bring the camera anyway.”
Maeve stepped toward the window.
“I will.”
“No,” I said.
She looked at me.
“He believes it matters.”
“It gives us time.”
Ruiz whispered into her radio.
A tactical team was moving toward the roof access.
Holloway heard static through the phone.
“No police.”
“They are already here,” I said.
His expression hardened.
“Then the boy comes with me.”
He dragged Tanner toward the far side of the roof.
We ran for the stairwell.
The roof door was chained from outside.
Ruiz fired at the lock.
The first shot failed.
The second broke it.
We burst onto the roof.
Holloway stood near a maintenance ladder descending to the neighboring building.
Tanner was no longer in his grip.
For one terrifying second, I thought he had fallen.
Then Tanner’s hand appeared beneath an air-conditioning unit.
He had slipped away.
Holloway saw us.
He ran toward the ladder.
Ruiz shouted.
“Stop!”
He climbed over the railing.
The old ladder tore free from the brick.
Holloway fell onto the lower roof.
He landed hard but remained conscious.
Officers surrounded him within seconds.
I crawled beneath the air-conditioning unit.
Tanner was curled against the wall.
He threw himself into my arms.
“I knew the camera uploaded.”
“How?”
“Maeve showed me the blue light.”
I held him tighter.
“You should never have needed to be that brave.”
Holloway shouted from the neighboring roof.
“You have nothing.”
“Olivia’s records are gone.”
Tanner pulled something from his sock.
A small brass key.
“He dropped this when he grabbed me.”
Maeve examined the engraved number.
“Safe-deposit box.”
Holloway stopped shouting.
For the first time, he looked afraid.
May you like
Then Tanner whispered another detail.
“The judge said the box contains proof that Mom was worse than all of them.”
