Chapter 6 - THE GIRL IN THE PHOTO
Jace read the message twice. He turned his phone over as if hiding the screen could make the threat disappear.
"Who's your sister?" Adrian asked.
"Mara. She works events at the hotel across the street. She's twenty-two. She didn't do anything."
"Then let's keep her safe," Nora said. She called Detective Lena Ortiz, the investigator who had handled Adrian's crash. Ortiz hadn't been told about the new photo. Within an hour she was on her way.
Mara arrived at the garage with a yellow raincoat dripping onto the concrete. She looked younger than Adrian expected and twice as angry.
"You let them blame my brother for the missing key," she said. "He almost lost his job."
"I didn't know," Adrian answered.
"You own the building. That's not the same thing as having no responsibility."
He accepted that without arguing.
Mara opened her phone to the original image. It showed Graham's signet ring, but also a detail hidden by the cropped print: a silver tool case beside the cabinet. Its handle bore the logo of an outside maintenance contractor.
"That's not our garage crew," Jace said.
Ortiz photographed the screen. "Don't send this anywhere else. We'll request the original file and preserve the metadata."
"Already backed it up," Mara said. "Twice."
A black SUV slowed near the entrance. Its driver never parked. Mara's face tightened.
"That car followed me from work."
Ortiz stepped toward the street with one hand on her radio. The SUV sped away before she reached the curb.
Adrian wanted to promise Mara nobody would hurt her. He had learned the price of promises made without evidence.
"We'll make sure the detective has everything," he said instead.
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As Ortiz inspected the cabinet, the building manager brought down a second access report. On the night of the crash, someone had disabled the garage camera for eleven minutes.
The authorization carried the name Caleb Ward.
