Chapter 10: The Missing Two Minutes
The room fell silent as the final frame froze on the monitor.
Detective Maya Torres leaned closer.
"Zoom in."
The forensic analyst enlarged the reflection in the nursery window.
The image became grainy, but one detail remained unmistakable.
The second figure wasn't wearing black.
He was dressed in light-colored clothing.
Almost like...
"A hospital gown?" one officer asked.
Nathan shook his head.
"No."
"It's too tailored."
The analyst sharpened the image again.
An embroidered patch appeared on the left sleeve.
Not a hospital logo.
A compass.
Broken by a lightning bolt.
No one in the room recognized it.
No one except Nathan.
His expression hardened.
"I've seen that symbol before."
Maya turned to him.
"Where?"
Nathan didn't answer immediately.
He hadn't seen it in a hospital.
Or during a police investigation.
He had seen it twenty-four years earlier, during a classified overseas operation.
Only a handful of people should have known it existed.
The SD card was sent to the digital forensics lab.
Most of the footage had been erased.
But not completely.
"People think deleting a file makes it disappear," the analyst explained.
"It usually doesn't."
Hours later, fragments of corrupted video began to reappear.
One clip lasted only eleven seconds.
Claire stepped into the nursery, holding her phone.
She looked frightened.
She whispered something toward the baby monitor.
The audio was damaged.
Only three words survived.
"...not... accident... father..."
The clip ended in static.
Nathan replayed it five times.
"She was trying to leave me a message."
Meanwhile, officers searched the apartment building again.
This time they ignored the apartments.
They searched the roof.
The basement.
Maintenance tunnels.
Inside the boiler room, Officer Liam Chen noticed something unusual.
A fresh scrape across the concrete floor.
He knelt beside it.
The mark ended beneath an old storage shelf.
Together with another officer, he pushed it aside.
Behind it...
A narrow steel door.
Hidden.
The lock had been cut recently.
Inside was a service tunnel connecting every building on the block.
"It bypasses the security cameras," Liam whispered.
Nathan entered the tunnel minutes later.
His flashlight swept across damp walls covered in decades of dust.
Except...
One path.
Fresh footprints.
Several.
Some large.
One much smaller.
Barefoot.
Nathan crouched.
Claire hated walking barefoot.
Unless...
She had lost her shoes.
Twenty yards farther, he found one of them.
A white maternity sneaker.
The lace had snapped.
Nathan picked it up carefully.
There was a small reddish stain near the heel.
He looked at Maya.
"Send it for testing."
She nodded.
"If it's blood..."
Nathan finished the sentence.
"...then she was still alive here."
Across the city, inside an abandoned riverside warehouse, Claire slowly opened her eyes.
The room was dimly lit.
She was lying on a narrow bed.
Her wrists weren't tied.
The door wasn't locked.
Confused, she stood.
"Hello?"
No answer.
She stepped into the hallway.
Clean floors.
Fresh paint.
The place didn't look abandoned at all.
A woman's voice echoed behind her.
"You shouldn't be walking."
Claire turned.
A woman in her sixties approached, wearing plain gray clothing.
"You need to rest."
"Who are you?"
"My name is Evelyn."
"Where am I?"
"You'll be safe here."
Claire backed away.
"I want to go home."
Evelyn sighed.
"I know."
"So did the others."
Claire froze.
"The others?"
Evelyn realized she had said too much.
Before she could answer, a loud buzzer echoed through the building.
Red lights began flashing.
Another voice boomed over the speakers.
"Unauthorized movement in Sector Three."
Evelyn looked genuinely frightened.
"You have to come with me."
"I'm not going anywhere."
Heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor.
Not one person.
Several.
Evelyn grabbed Claire's hand.
"If they find you first..."
She looked Claire straight in the eyes.
"...they won't ask questions."
Back inside the service tunnel, Officer Liam called out.
"I found something!"
Nathan hurried over.
Wedged between two pipes was a small voice recorder.
Its battery was dead.
The forensics technician replaced it with a fresh one.
A single recording played.
Claire's voice.
Calm.
Deliberate.
"If Dad finds this..."
A loud bang interrupted the recording.
Claire gasped.
Then whispered quickly,
"They're using the old river..."
The message cut off.
Everyone looked at one another.
"The old river?" Maya asked.
Nathan's eyes widened.
He unfolded an old city map hanging on the tunnel wall.
Only one abandoned industrial district sat beside the city's original river channel.
Rows of forgotten warehouses.
Hundreds of places to hide someone.
Before anyone could speak again, Nathan's phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A distorted voice said only one sentence.
"If you want to see your daughter alive..."
"...stop searching Warehouse Twelve."
The call disconnected.
Nathan slowly lowered the phone.
He hadn't told anyone they were about to search Warehouse Twelve.
May you like
Which meant only one thing.
Someone inside the investigation already knew their next move.
