Page 18 of Salem's Fall
On the way home, I stop by the office to have IT load thetapes to the server, so things are secure. This way, anyone on the team can remote access our firm’s database online to cue up the files. After that, I head to my apartment to watch the security tapes on my laptop, sprawled out on my bed with Lucky curled up beside me. One thing about the firm, they work us to the bone, but they don’t micromanage. As long as you’re doing your job, most partners don’t care where you’re doing it from. That works well for me. I’ve got Madison and Lucky to take care of, and it’s nice to be able to work from home on occasion and not always be shackled to my office chair.
As the tapes load, I think back to what Damien told me earlier, how the knife must have been planted within the last two weeks because the office building wasn’t accessible before then. If this really wasn’t Damien, and someone else is trying to frame him, why wait a whole year? Why now, right around the same time as his arrest?
I have a hunch that Damien’s arrest and the murder weapon’s sudden appearance are connected somehow. It’s incredibly convenient that the murder weapon was found so soon after his arrest.
“What if they wanted to make sure the charges stuck after the arrest?” I ask out loud to Lucky. “What if the person who buried the knife tipped off the media? And the DA?”
It’s a wild hunch, but not a crazy one.
I glance at Lucky, who is watching the screen as if he understands exactly what’s going on. “What do you think, boy?” I ask, scratching behind his ears. “Should I start from the beginning or skip straight to after Damien was arrested?”
Lucky’s ears twitch eagerly, and he taps the laptop’s keyboard with his paw, starting the tapes on the day of Damien’s arrest.
I chuckle. “Guess that’s as good a place as any.”
The footage plays, showing a busy building during the day. Employees coming and going. It’s boring, monotonous… Nothing seems amiss. At evening time, the floodlights turn on, and I watch as security makes their rounds. Nothing interesting happens until the timestamp hits a few minutes before midnight. Suddenly, a dark figure sneaks into the frame.
My heart thumps in my chest.
Holy shit.
Can it really be this easy? Do I have the culprit right here on tape?
Judging by the height and build, it’s definitely a man, but even with the floodlights on, it’s still too dark to make out any discernible features. He gets closer to the camera, and just when I think I’m about to see his face, the screen flickers and the image distorts into a blur. A few more minutes pass until, just as quickly as it began, the blurriness clears. By then, the figure is long gone; it’s as if they’d never even been there.
I can’t believe it. It’s just like the weird technical glitch with the Museum Gala tapes.
No, not just like.
It’sexactlylike those tapes.
My pulse quickens as I sit up, leaning in closer to the screen. Two tapes. Two locations. Two completely different servers. But both with the same strange distortions at critical times?
“What are the odds?” I ask, wondering aloud.
Lucky mewls next to me and tilts his head, as if to say, “Not good.”
I shoot off a quick email to Quinn and the team, letting them know about my review of the tapes, and then rewind the video one more time. I squint at the screen, trying to focus harder, but the distortion makes it impossible to see anything useful. Frustration boils up inside me as I lean back against theheadboard of my bed, rubbing my temples. The blurs on the tapes feel like a taunt, a deliberate attempt to cover up something important. But who would have the resources to pull off something like that?
And why?
My cell phone buzzes on the nightstand. I look over and see Quinn’s name flashing on the screen, sending my pulse skittering. Quinn knows I’m working from home and rarely calls unless it’s an emergency.
I groan, thinking back to my interactions with Damien this morning. While he doesn’t seem like the type to complain, Iwasa bit rude to him. I hope this isn’t going to be a lecture from Quinn on attorney-client relations—though I probably deserve one.
“Hi, Quinn.” I answer, my voice edged with a bit of anxiety. “What’s up?”
“James, are you sitting down?” His voice is softer than usual, heavy with a kind of seriousness I’m not used to hearing from him. Plus, I’m suddenly James—not Woodsen. Something is very wrong.
“Yeah… I’m sitting.” My stomach tightens. “Why?”
There’s a long pause. I hear his heavy breathing on the other end, as if he’s trying to figure out how to say what’s coming next.
“Quinn? You’re kind of freaking me out?”
“It’s… Mark.” His voice cracks slightly. “He’s dead.”
The words land like a punch to the gut, knocking the air from my lungs.
