Chapter 12 - LENA'S ROOM
The intruder had ignored jewelry, cash, electronics, and silverware.
Lena's mattress was cut open.
Her drawers were dumped.
The vent cover behind her dresser had been ripped from the wall.
"They were looking for recordings," Lena said.
She was right.
Weeks earlier, she had hidden a backup drive inside that vent.
Fortunately, she had moved it after Ava's fall.
Unfortunately, only one person had ever seen where she first hid it.
A young maintenance worker named Sam Ortega.
Police found Sam's car abandoned near the river.
His phone was inside.
Sam was not.
Ethan blamed himself for everything. Ava refused to let the conversation stay there.
"Guilt isn't useful if all it does is make you collapse," she told him. "Help find him."
The backup drive contained more than videos.
Lena had quietly photographed medication labels, visitor logs, invoices, and notes she found while cleaning Margaret's office.
One photograph showed a handwritten list.
Ava.
Lena.
Claire.
Sam.
Nora.
Each name had a symbol beside it.
Ava's was circled.
Lena's had an X.
"Phase two," Maya said.
Ava felt cold.
The next morning, detectives located Sam alive at a roadside motel.
He had fled because a man cornered him outside the house and offered him ten thousand dollars to say Lena planted the pills.
"Did you recognize him?" Ruiz asked.
Sam nodded.
"I'd seen him with Mrs. Hale."
He identified Victor Lane from a photograph.
That should have been good news.
Instead, Ruiz received another call.
Victor's car had been found at the airport.
His passport had been scanned two hours earlier.
But he never boarded a flight.
Airport video showed him entering a parking garage carrying a gray suitcase.
Three minutes later, Margaret Hale's car entered the same garage.
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Neither of them was seen leaving on camera.
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