The Camera in the Serving Bell
Chapter 05 - The Camera in the Serving Bell
The old Ashford service system had been built by hotel engineer Rosa Bennett forty years earlier.
Each serving bell contained a small camera designed to document workplace injuries and disputes between executives and staff.
Victoria believed the system had been disconnected.
Noah secretly restored it during his audit.
The breakfast-hall camera had captured more than the porridge incident.
Investigators recovered months of recordings.
Victoria and Victor discussed replacing Noah’s original will.
They planned to classify Elena as an unstable former employee if she appeared.
They also spoke about Arthur Price, the missing notary.
“He still has the ledger,” Victor said in one recording.
Victoria answered, “Then keep him at Briar Glen until the child is born.”
Briar Glen was an Ashford-owned retirement residence outside the city.
Public records listed no Arthur Price.
A resident identified only as A-47 occupied a private medical cottage funded through the Hearth Foundation.
Ortiz obtained a warrant.
Before investigators arrived, the cottage was emptied.
A staff nurse admitted Victor had ordered the transfer after Daniel returned to the manor.
The vehicle used for the transfer belonged to an Ashford food-distribution company.
Its tracker had been disabled.
Rosa Bennett, now retired, examined the service camera logs.
One bell had activated twenty minutes after the vehicle left Briar Glen.
It was located inside an abandoned Ashford training hotel near the river.
The building had once housed a culinary school for employees’ children.
Victoria closed it after Noah’s disappearance.
Daniel looked at the map.
“My brother spent every summer there.”
Elena remembered something Noah once said.
“If the family ever hides the truth, look where they stopped feeding people.”
May you like
The abandoned culinary school was not only a possible location for Arthur.
Its lower archive contained every original Hearth Foundation delivery ledger.
