Chapter 16 - Eight Minutes
The security recording started with an ordinary alarm beep.
Then voices crowded the line.
"Smoke on the second floor. Evacuate the building."
"West stairwell is blocked," someone answered.
A woman shouted in the background.
Price recognized Rachel's voice from an archived emergency call.
"Open the blue door! There's a resident still upstairs!"
The clock on the recording read 8:16 p.m.
Four minutes had passed since the alarm.
At 8:18, Colin Rusk called the monitoring desk.
His voice was clear.
"Leave that exit shut. Mrs. Ashcroft knows there's someone inside. We're securing the records before anyone enters the west corridor."
The technician argued that the building was on fire.
Rusk replied, "Those are the instructions."
Firefighters finally cut the chain and opened the door at 8:24.
By then Rachel was unresponsive near the stairwell.
Leah sat in Price's office with her hands over her mouth.
Eight minutes.
Eight minutes spent protecting papers while her sister needed an open door.
"They knew," she said.
Price didn't soften it.
"The recording strongly supports that they knew. We still need to establish who issued each order and when."
Holt explained that the original fire review had never received the vendor's separate recording system.
It had relied on the building's damaged local equipment and staff interviews.
The new evidence changed that.
"Did Rachel suffer?" Leah asked.
Holt lowered her eyes.
"I won't make up an answer. I'm sorry."
That honesty hurt, but Leah was grateful for it.
That evening she sat beside Noah's bed until his breathing slowed.
He had asked for the moon book again.
She read the same page three times because he liked the part where a small astronaut found his way home.
Afterward, Price texted her two words.
May you like
RUSK ARRESTED.
And beneath them came a longer message: His attorney says he wants to talk about Vivian.
