Chapter 6 - The Night Shift Knows
The voice belonged to Owen Price, the head of night security. He stood at the end of the corridor with a flashlight in one hand and his radio in the other. He was a broad-shouldered former firefighter whose uniform looked too neat for a man who had spent twenty years working graveyard shifts.
“I sent the others to check the archive,” he said. “The door was locked from the inside. When we got it open, the room was empty.”
“I don't know. The access log says my card was used, but I was downstairs at the loading dock.”
Elena asked Owen to show her the access logs. He hesitated, then led her to the control room. The screen showed three entries from a card assigned to Victoria, all within the last hour. One entry opened the archive. Another disabled the east-lobby cameras. The third tried to access the fire-safety system.
“Why would anyone touch the fire system?” Elena asked.
Owen's jaw tightened. “Because the service corridor doors have been sticking for months. I filed reports. Victoria told maintenance to stop wasting money on them.”
“Has there been an incident?”
“Six months ago, a kitchen worker got trapped behind a fire door during a smoke alarm. He was fine, but the report disappeared. After that, I started keeping copies.”
He opened a folder on his desk. The reports showed missing extinguisher inspections, alarms that had been switched to manual mode, and emergency lights that failed on two floors.
“Give me copies,” she said. “And no one changes a safety setting without my written approval.”
Owen nodded. “There's something else. A young employee came to me last night. He said he saw Victoria moving boxes from the charity office.”
“Sometimes the truth gets people in trouble,” Elena replied. “That doesn't make it less important.”
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Jamie looked toward the lobby, where Victoria stood watching them.
“She knows I recorded her,” he whispered. “And now she's looking for me.”
