Chapter 7 - Camera 4B
Her name was Allison Crane.
She was twenty-nine years old, worked in hospital IT, and looked as though she had not slept in days.
I did not go alone.
I ignored her instruction.
Samuel arranged for a retired police officer named Marcus Reed to follow at a distance while I entered the diner.
If Allison noticed, she did not say anything.
She sat in the back booth wearing a baseball cap and oversized coat.
“I have ten minutes,” she said.
“Then use them well.”
Her eyes darted toward the window.
“You’re Richard Marlowe’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Tell me about Camera 4B.”
She swallowed.
“Fourth floor. West hallway. It covers the service corridor outside the private patient rooms.”
“Dad was in 417.”
“I know.”
She slid a flash drive across the table.
“This is the original.”
“Original what?”
“Security export.”
I stared at it.
“You deleted footage?”
“I was told to.”
“By who?”
“Andrew Keller.”
The hospital administrator.
“What exactly did he tell you?”
“That a privacy complaint required footage from that section to be purged.”
“Is that normal?”
“No.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“Because he’s my boss’s boss.”
“That doesn’t explain why you kept a copy.”
Her hands shook.
“Because twenty minutes before I deleted it, I watched it.”
My chest tightened.
“What did you see?”
“Your uncle.”
Raymond.
“He entered your father’s room at 11:42 p.m.”
“Was he alone?”
“At first.”
“At first?”
“Six minutes later Keller joined him.”
I stopped.
“How long were they inside?”
“Seventeen minutes.”
“What happened when they left?”
She looked down.
“Keller had a medication pouch.”
“What medication?”
“I couldn’t see.”
“What happened to Dad?”
“Nothing on the hallway camera.”
“Then why is this important?”
“Because a nurse entered the room ninety seconds later.”
“And?”
“She came back out almost immediately and called for help.”
My palms went cold.
“What night was this?”
“Three nights before your father died.”
I knew the night.
That was when Dad’s condition suddenly worsened.
Doctors told us his heart had become unstable.
They increased monitoring.
Julian cried in the hallway.
Raymond hugged me.
I remembered that hug.
His hand pressed against the back of my head while he told me sometimes God decides before families are ready.
I wanted to vomit.
“Why tell me now?”
Allison looked at me.
“Because someone broke into my apartment yesterday.”
“What did they take?”
“My laptop.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“So they knew.”
“They knew I copied the footage.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“You told someone?”
“My boyfriend.”
“Who is he?”
Her face collapsed.
“Ex-boyfriend.”
A terrible feeling moved through me.
“Who?”
“Daniel Keller.”
I stared at her.
“Andrew Keller’s son?”
She nodded.
Of course.
Always another connection.
Always another family protecting itself.
“Does Daniel know you’re here?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
Marcus appeared at the diner entrance.
His expression told me something was wrong.
He walked directly to our booth.
“Elena, we need to leave.”
“What happened?”
“Someone just photographed you through the back window.”
Allison stood so fast she knocked over her coffee.
“I knew it.”
Marcus looked at her.
“You coming?”
She hesitated.
Then nodded.
We left through the kitchen.
By evening, Samuel had arranged a safe location for Allison and turned the video over to investigators.
I watched it once.
That was enough.
11:42 p.m.
Raymond walked down the hallway.
He wore the camel-colored coat he wore every winter.
He checked both directions before entering Dad’s room.
At 11:48, Andrew Keller appeared.
He carried nothing.
At 12:05, he left holding a small medical pouch.
At 12:06, a nurse entered.
At 12:07, she rushed back out.
It proved suspicious behavior.
It did not prove murder.
Yet.
The next morning, I appeared in probate court.
Julian did not attend.
His attorney claimed he was receiving medical treatment following “an emotional breakdown caused by family harassment.”
I almost admired the audacity.
Raymond attended.
He sat behind Julian’s attorney in a charcoal suit.
When I entered, he looked at my swollen lip and gave me a sad smile.
As though he had not threatened me.
As though his voice had not been on the phone.
Samuel presented Dad’s recorded execution of the will.
Two nurses testified remotely.
A notary confirmed Dad was lucid.
Julian’s emergency petition to remove me was denied.
For the first time in days, something went right.
Then Raymond stood in the courthouse hallway and approached me in front of reporters.
“Elena.”
Cameras turned.
I knew exactly what he was doing.
Creating an image.
The grieving uncle trying to reconcile.
I stopped.
He opened his arms slightly.
“This family has suffered enough.”
I looked at him.
“You’re right.”
“We should settle this privately.”
“Why?”
“For your father.”
“You mean the brother whose signature you forged?”
The cameras erupted.
Raymond’s expression remained almost perfectly calm.
Almost.
“You’re grieving.”
“You visited Dad three nights before he died.”
His eyes sharpened.
Samuel touched my arm.
“That’s enough.”
But I wanted Raymond to know.
I wanted him to understand that I had seen Camera 4B.
I leaned closer.
“Eleven forty-two.”
His face changed.
Tiny.
But real.
Then he whispered so only I could hear.
“You have no idea what your brother did.”
I stared at him.
“What does that mean?”
He smiled for the cameras.
Then walked away.
That afternoon, police found Julian.
He was sitting in his car outside an abandoned warehouse.
Alive.
Bruised.
Terrified.
And refusing to say who had beaten him.
But when officers searched his trunk, they found something that changed everything.
May you like
A hospital medication kit.
Bearing my father’s patient identification number.
