The Missing Minutes
Chapter 09 - The Missing Minutes
Nathan was arrested for sabotage, fraud, and attempted evidence destruction.
Yet he continued insisting someone else repositioned the wire.
Detective Ortiz reviewed the chandelier footage frame by frame.
Seven minutes were missing between Nathan leaving the passage and Grace approaching the staircase.
The magnetic tape had not been erased.
It had been physically cut.
Only someone who knew Samuel’s old system could remove film without damaging the recorder.
Grace searched the archive correspondence.
One name appeared repeatedly beside Samuel’s camera designs:
Elena Ellis.
Grace’s mother had helped build the security system.
If Elena survived Arthur’s intervention, she might know how to alter the tape.
A sealed hospital record found among Eleanor’s files showed Elena was transferred to Briarwood Recovery Center after Grace’s adoption.
The center closed eighteen years earlier.
Former staff said Elena escaped.
No death record existed.
Grace’s mother might still be alive.
Nathan’s phone contained a recent call from a prepaid number registered near Briarwood.
The caller left one message:
THE DAUGHTER MUST NOT SIGN BEFORE THE CHILD IS BORN.
Grace listened three times.
The voice was older and strained.
Eleanor recognized it.
“Elena.”
Grace felt hope and fear arrive together.
Why would her own mother want to stop her from signing the trust?
The original Ellis charter answered.
If Grace claimed the shares before giving birth, the company would immediately enter a public employee trust.
If she waited until after the child was born, the voting rights would pass through a private family trust controlled by the child’s court-appointed guardian.
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Someone wanted control through the baby.
The staircase fall had been designed to trigger early labor before Grace could sign.
