Chapter 7 - The Cropped Video
Mason met me beside the empty therapy pool. His suit jacket was gone and sweat darkened his collar.
"You told a boy to erase his video," I said.
"Vivian told me to get it. I did. I shouldn't have."
He held out a tablet. The file was labeled GATE INCIDENT, edited at 2:17 p.m., forty minutes after Lily had been taken away.
The video began with Nora charging across the deck toward Lily. If you stopped it there, her outstretched hands looked like a shove. But I had already seen Hazel's clip. Lily had gone through the gate before Nora appeared.
"Who cut this?" I asked.
"Vivian's events assistant. Then Vivian sent it to the board."
"Where's the original?"
"I don't have it. Owen's video was deleted from his phone. The main pool camera went down during the presentation."
"Convenient."
Mason looked toward the hallway. "I have a daughter. I told myself I was protecting my job. Then I watched your little girl get loaded into that ambulance."
I wanted to tell him he could make it right. I also wanted to ask why his conscience had needed an ambulance to wake up.
"Write down everything you did," I said. "Don't send it to Vivian. Send it to the investigator."
He gave me the name of the officer assigned to Lily's accident, Detective Priya Shah. I forwarded Hazel's clip and my approval document before either could vanish.
At home, Lily sat at the kitchen table building a duck from yellow blocks. She looked up when I came in.
"Did the wet lady get in trouble?"
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"I told everyone she helped you."
"Good." Lily set down a block. "But Daddy, you still haven't asked why Miss Vivian shut the gate behind me."
