Chapter 6 - The First Crack
Camille spent the night at a luxury hotel under instructions not to contact Oliver directly.
No arrest had been made.
Not yet.
Her attorney had reminded her of that repeatedly.
“You have rights,” Raymond Price said.
Camille stood at the window of her suite, watching snow cover the mountain road.
“They stole my child.”
“Child protective services initiated a temporary protective hold.”
“They stole him.”
“Camille.”
She turned.
Raymond was sixty-one, patient, expensive, and almost impossible to rattle.
“You need to listen carefully.”
“I am listening.”
“No, you are waiting to speak.”
Her eyes narrowed.
He continued.
“The medical findings are serious. Interfering with emergency care is serious. The object inside the cast is worse.”
“I didn’t put it there.”
“You told the doctor it belonged to you.”
“I was panicking.”
“Then why did you panic?”
Camille walked toward the minibar.
Raymond stopped her.
“Not alcohol.”
She laughed.
“You sound like Grant.”
“That is another problem.”
“What?”
“Do not contact Grant.”
“Why?”
“Because investigators are looking at him.”
“They’re looking at everyone.”
“Camille.”
She stared at him.
Raymond lowered his voice.
“If you and Grant have coordinated any version of events, stop.”
Her silence gave him an answer he did not want.
“You hired me to defend you,” he said. “I cannot protect you from facts you refuse to tell me.”
“I have told you.”
“No. You have told me a sequence of sentences designed to sound safe.”
Camille’s face hardened.
“I’m paying you.”
“Yes.”
Raymond gathered his papers.
“And I am telling you that money does not purchase a different reality.”
He left.
Camille waited thirty seconds.
Then she retrieved a second phone from her suitcase.
She called Grant.
He answered immediately.
“You were told not to call.”
“So were you.”
“What did Oliver say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Camille.”
“I don’t know!”
She lowered her voice.
“The hospital won’t let me near him.”
“Did they get the drive?”
“Yes.”
A long silence.
“Then we have to assume they’ll decrypt it.”
“You said they couldn’t.”
“I said it would take time.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“You told me it was safe.”
“It was safe when it was in the cast.”
Camille pressed her fingers to her forehead.
“He got sick.”
“You should have had Keane loosen it.”
“I tried.”
“No. You took Oliver to a mountain clinic.”
“He had a fever of one hundred and three.”
“You should have called me.”
“What was I supposed to do? Let him collapse in the hotel?”
Grant did not answer.
Camille closed her eyes.
For one terrible second, she heard how the sentence sounded.
Grant heard it too.
“You need to stop talking,” he said.
“You put me in this.”
“No.”
His voice went cold.
“We made decisions together.”
Camille stared through the glass.
“I never agreed for Oliver to get hurt.”
“You agreed to use the cast.”
“I thought it was temporary.”
“So did I.”
“You told Keane it was safe.”
“And you watched him do it.”
The accusation landed precisely.
Camille’s face changed.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not taking the blame alone.”
“Neither am I.”
Another silence.
Then Grant said, “There’s still the backup.”
Camille straightened.
“What backup?”
“At the house.”
“AVA has another copy.”
“Not theirs.”
Her heartbeat increased.
“Adrian’s.”
Camille whispered, “That was destroyed.”
“I thought so.”
“You said you handled it.”
“I found a reference in his archived calendar.”
“To what?”
“A secure storage key.”
Camille closed her eyes.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Grant continued.
“But Eleanor may.”
Meanwhile, at St. Catherine’s, Oliver met Dr. Mei Chen, a pediatric psychologist who specialized in trauma.
She did not ask about the cast.
She brought a deck of cards.
They played Go Fish.
Oliver beat her twice.
“You’re terrible at this,” he informed her.
“I have many professional strengths.”
“This isn’t one.”
“No.”
He almost smiled.
On the third game, Mei asked, “Do you know why you’re staying with your grandmother when you leave the hospital?”
“Because Mom’s mad.”
“Is that what someone told you?”
“No.”
“What makes you think it?”
“She always gets mad when people don’t listen.”
“Are you worried she’ll be angry with you?”
“Yes.”
“For talking?”
Oliver nodded.
Mei placed down a card.
“Can I tell you something that might sound strange?”
“What?”
“Sometimes children think they caused an adult’s consequences because the consequence happened after the child spoke.”
Oliver frowned.
“If I didn’t talk, Mom wouldn’t be in trouble.”
“That may be true.”
He looked surprised.
Most adults told him he was wrong too quickly.
Mei continued.
“But that doesn’t mean you caused what she did.”
Oliver stared at his cards.
“She said families keep secrets.”
“Some secrets are okay.”
“Like birthday presents?”
“Yes.”
“Not black things in casts?”
“No.”
He considered that.
Then he asked, “What if I still miss her?”
Mei did not hesitate.
“You probably will.”
His eyes filled.
“Does that mean I want to go back?”
“No.”
That answer seemed to release something.
Oliver cried.
Not because he wanted Camille.
Not because he didn’t.
Because for the first time, someone allowed both things to be true.
Across town, Detective Ortiz received the first preliminary forensic report from the recovered drive.
AVA technicians had confirmed it was their missing evidence copy.
The encryption remained intact.
But one exterior identifier had already been verified.
The drive had been signed out of AVA’s secure preparation room by a senior analyst named Martin Shaw.
Shaw remembered handing it personally to Eleanor Vale’s attorney.
He also remembered something else.
Before sealing it, he created a cryptographic inventory.
Seventeen folders.
Four hundred thirty-two files.
Financial records.
Emails.
Contracts.
Voice messages.
And one video.
“What video?” Lena asked.
Shaw hesitated.
“I never watched it.”
“Why not?”
“It wasn’t part of my assignment.”
“Filename?”
He pulled up the inventory.
Then read it aloud.
“AV_Private_Office_03-14.”
Lena wrote it down.
“What date did Adrian Vale die?”
Shaw looked at her.
May you like
“March eighteenth.”
The video had been created four days before Adrian’s death.
