Chapter 5 - Eleven Missing Minutes
By noon, the hospital had placed restrictions on who could see me. Audrey's calls went through the nurses' station. Miriam filed an emergency objection to the guardianship petition and a request to preserve the company's financial records.
Delia came in wearing the same rain jacket she'd worn when she dragged me from the lake. Her right hand was bandaged from the rough dock boards.
"You didn't have to pull me out yourself," I told her.
"You hired me to keep the place running," she said. "Saving the boss is an occasional overtime duty."
She tried to smile. It didn't last.
She knew my daughter almost as well as I did.
"The camera recording was deleted," Delia said, "but whoever did it missed the access log. The request came through a laptop registered to Audrey's executive office."
"Can the police recover the footage?"
"Maybe. There's another problem. Someone sent security orders at eight-thirty telling the night crew to stay away from Pier Six. They were signed with your name."
I looked at Miriam. "I wasn't running a night inspection."
"We can document that," she replied.
Delia handed me a photograph she'd taken months before, when Nora's safety collar was last serviced. It showed the red button tucked neatly beneath my armrest and a small handwritten note on the workshop wall: ALWAYS LEAVE HIM A WAY BACK.
"Nora wrote that," Delia said. "Audrey used to laugh at it."
Then Delia's phone buzzed. She read the message twice, and the color drained from her face.
"The company has just suspended me," she said. "Audrey says I stole the missing security footage."
May you like
A second message appeared beneath it, this one from an unknown number.
STOP LOOKING, OR NEXT TIME THE BUTTON WON'T WORK.
