Chapter 18 - Ten Minutes to Erase Eight Years.
The countdown reached nine minutes and forty seconds.
Mara rushed to the computer holding the memory card.
The screen flashed a message.
REMOTE WIPE SEQUENCE ACTIVE.
She pulled the card out.
The countdown continued.
"It's not the card," she said.
Celeste checked another terminal.
"Estate network."
Gabriel looked at Bell.
"What did you trigger?"
Bell remained silent.
Pike moved closer.
"Thomas."
"You think arresting me stops it?"
"Maybe talking does."
Bell smiled.
"No."
Mara opened the old computer case.
"The archive servers are being wiped through the estate backup system."
Gabriel frowned.
"Those servers aren't connected."
"The hidden office was."
Elena understood.
"The transmitter."
Gabriel pulled the coin-sized device from his pocket.
Bell looked at it and laughed.
"You carried the bridge out for me."
Gabriel's expression darkened.
The device had not merely been a microphone.
It had provided a temporary connection between the hidden surveillance network and whatever system Bell controlled.
"Destroy it," Mara said.
Gabriel smashed it beneath his shoe.
The countdown continued.
"Too late," Bell said.
Eight minutes fifty seconds.
Pike ordered the deputies to secure Bell.
Bell did not resist as they cuffed him.
That made Elena more nervous.
"Why are you smiling?"
Bell looked at her.
"Because you're all saving the wrong evidence."
Mara stopped typing.
"What does that mean?"
Bell said nothing.
Elena looked at the broom.
The memory card from the handle contained copied files, but the underground archive contained originals.
If the originals disappeared, Hale could argue the copies were manipulated.
Especially because some had been.
Pike understood too.
"We need the paper archive."
Gabriel grabbed his jacket.
"Then we go back underground."
Celeste looked at the countdown.
"Eight minutes isn't enough."
"It has to be."
Mara stopped him.
"If Bell has a wipe sequence, he may have something else down there."
"Like what?"
Bell answered from the doorway.
"You'll find out."
Elena looked at him.
"You really enjoy sounding important."
Bell's smile faded.
"Your sister learned when to stop talking."
Mara stiffened.
Elena stepped toward Bell before Gabriel could react.
She stopped inches away.
"No."
Her voice was calm.
"You taught her to be afraid."
Bell stared at her.
"That isn't the same thing."
The words struck him harder than shouting would have.
Pike led Bell outside under guard.
Gabriel, Elena, Mara, and Celeste drove back toward the mansion.
Seven minutes remained.
They entered through the east service stairwell.
The steel archive door was open.
Smoke drifted from the server area.
Not fire.
A chemical suppressant system had activated.
Mara covered her mouth with her sleeve.
"Paper files first."
They moved quickly.
Elena grabbed the Mara Torres folder.
Gabriel collected Northstar ledgers.
Celeste pulled authorization records.
Mara searched for the original beneficiary books.
Five minutes.
A mechanical noise started inside the walls.
Metal shutters began descending over the archive cabinets.
"He's sealing them," Celeste said.
Gabriel wedged a chair beneath one shutter.
It bent but slowed.
Elena saw a cabinet marked EASTBRIDGE.
Hale's clue.
She pulled the drawer open.
Inside were corporate filings, photographs, and payment instructions tied to Thomas Bell.
One photo showed Bell entering Elena's apartment building the morning after her crash.
Another showed him meeting a contractor who worked for Hale Protective Systems.
Elena's stomach turned.
"He was there."
Mara came over.
She saw the photograph.
Her face went blank.
"He told me he was in Ohio that week."
Elena opened another envelope.
Inside was her missing silver bracelet.
The one worn by the fake Elena on the security footage.
Mara stared at it.
"Celeste's double wore a replica."
"Then this one was used by somebody else."
Celeste understood.
"Bell made a second fake Elena."
The realization was sickening.
Celeste's staged decoy had been one incident.
Bell had copied it and used the confusion to create another layer.
Three minutes.
Gabriel pulled a paper ledger from the top cabinet.
"Got the original Northstar transfer book."
Mara looked at it.
"No."
"What?"
"The binding is wrong."
Gabriel stared at the cover.
"It's a replacement."
"Bell swapped it."
Two minutes thirty.
Elena remembered the broom.
Mara had said she originally hid the backup inside the handle.
Isabel later replaced it with the metal tube.
But Bell was the only person who said Isabel had replaced it.
"What if he lied about the broom too?"
Mara looked at her.
"What?"
"What if the thing we found inside wasn't the only compartment?"
They had left the broom at the grounds office.
Elena almost swore.
Then she remembered the wooden shaft felt unusually heavy near the brush head, not the brass cap.
She had noticed it every day while cleaning.
The cap was a distraction.
"We need that broom."
Gabriel stared at the closing shutters.
"We need to leave."
One minute forty.
A warning tone sounded.
Celeste grabbed the Eastbridge file.
Mara took as many paper folders as she could carry.
They ran toward the steel door.
Behind them, cabinets locked shut.
Thirty seconds.
They reached the service stairs.
The archive door slammed closed.
The countdown hit zero.
Every light in the east wing went dark.
When emergency power returned, Gabriel checked his phone.
All cloud backups associated with Reyes Holdings showed empty directories.
Years of records were gone from the network.
But Elena was staring through the stairwell window toward the grounds office.
Blue lights flashed in the distance.
Then one vehicle pulled away without lights.
Pike called Gabriel.
His voice was furious.
"Bell escaped."
Elena's heart dropped.
"How?"
Pike answered through the speaker.
"One of the deputies transporting him was on his payroll."
Mara closed her eyes.
Gabriel asked the next question.
"What did he take?"
May you like
Pike was silent for a beat.
"The broom."
