Chapter 9 - THE SECOND ADULT
Police found Mills at home forty minutes later. Kendrick was not there.
Mills claimed she had driven Kendrick off campus because the teacher was being harassed. She denied knowing anything about Maisie in the supply closet.
Then school security footage complicated everything.
At 3:12 p.m., Maisie could be seen walking toward the office with Kendrick.
At 3:13, Mills entered the same hallway.
At 3:16, both women left through the staff exit.
Maisie did not.
"They left her locked inside," Leah said.
Detective Aaron Cole nodded grimly.
"That's what it looks like."
Kendrick's attorney called the incident a misunderstanding. By evening, Kendrick surrendered voluntarily and insisted Maisie had entered the closet on her own during an "emotional episode."
Rafael's video badly damaged that story.
Then something unexpected happened.
The district announced that Rafael was still under investigation.
The official statement praised "the courage of all employees who protect students" while warning that "unauthorized recordings may create separate policy concerns."
Sofia read it aloud in Rafael's kitchen.
"They're trying to split the story."
"Meaning?" Elena asked.
"Kendrick bad. Bell innocent. Dad reckless. Problem contained."
Rafael sat quietly. After eighteen years fixing that building, he knew every crack in it.
Then he remembered something.
"The hallway camera," he said.
Sofia looked at him.
"What about it?"
"Marcus said Bell told him the camera outside the Reset room was broken when Landon was there."
"Right."
"It wasn't."
Rafael remembered replacing the camera housing that same week. The unit had worked perfectly.
He stood.
"If the footage disappeared, somebody deleted it."
Sofia's eyes narrowed.
"Can you prove that?"
Rafael thought about the old maintenance server in the basement.
May you like
The one nobody remembered existed.
"Maybe," he said. "If they forgot about the backup."
