"When I came upstairs, I ran into her. She said she was just heading out to get something..." Reese''s words trailed off as she turned to turned to Aiden. "Aiden, go find the nurse. As soon as we track her down, we''ll know what really


    happened.


    "Maybe she''s the one who did something to Mr. Ratcliff."


    Aiden stood off to the side, looking pale and uneasy. Even though e''d spent years by Mr. Ratcliff''s side, he wasn''t close to Reese. Still, he knew just how much the old man trusted her. It didn''t make sense that she''d ever hurt him. But ming the nurse seemed even more far-fetched.


    "I personally picked every nurse here. We ran background checks on all of them. They''re reliable. There''s just no way any of them would do something like this.


    "And she''s been taking care of Mr. Ratcliff for so long. If she really wanted to hurt him, there were plenty of chances before. Why did she wait until now..."


    Reese cut him off, her voice icy. "Just go find her, Aiden. Don''t you want to get to the bottom of what happened to Mr. Ratcliff?"


    She stepped closer, her eyes never leaving his. Her tone turned almost mocking. "Or maybe... maybe you and the nurse are in this together? Is that why you''re so hesitant to look for her? Are you afraid we''ll find out the truth?"


    Aiden''s face went ghostly white. He rushed to exin, stumbling over his own words. “Ma''am, how can you say that? I''ll send someone to look for her right now."


    He hurried off, phone already in his hand. As he left, Sebastian caught one of the security guards'' eyes, and the guard quietly stepped away to make a call.


    Reese lowered her head, thinking for a moment before speaking up again. "What about security footage? Someone else could''ve been around during that time. We should check the cameras outside Mr. Ratcliff''s room."


    "Ma''am, I already pulled the footage," said one of the staff, sounding a little nervous. "The cameras show exactly when you went in, but there''s a chunk of time missing.


    "I checked out why. It looks like someone tampered with the system."


    Jane''s sharp voice cut through the room. "Of course it was you! Isn''t this what you do for a living? Messing withputers?


    "Seriously, using everyone else while you''re the one who destroyed the evidence and then pretending to help us find it. ssic."


    Reese ignored herpletely and turned to Sebastian. "Do you have aptop? I can try to recover the files."


    Sebastian''s expression wavered,


    torn between doubt and trust. He didn''t want to believe Reese would hurt Mr. Ratcliff. But the system had been hacked, and Reese was an expert in this field. She couldb definitely pull it off. The m missing


    footage, Aiden''s testimony, and the suspicious nurse... Every single clue seemed to be pointing straight at Reese.


    He held her gaze for a long moment before finally saying, "Let''s go to the control room."


    They all filed into the security control center. The hospital''s security team already had their orders. As soon as Reese and the others entered they eleared space for them at the


    console.


    main


    "Mr. Ratcliff, we''ve been trying to get the footage back," one of the guards said, "but the cameras were out during the incident."


    "They were out?" Reese repeated. She walked up to the console, fingers typing quickly as she pulled up the storage logs. Her frown deepened as she read the data.


    "The core hard drive is fine. There''s no sign that anything was physically deleted."


    She brought up a mess of electromaic signal charts and pointed to the wildest spikes. "This is ssic electromaic interference. The frequency matches the system exactly.


    "Someone used a jammer to block the cameras. Nothing got recorded during that time, so there''s nothing to recover."


    She tried to ess the backups and the hallway sensors, but the same gap showed up everywhere.


    "The jammer must''ve been strong enough to wipe out every camera in this whole area. There''s no data left at all."


    During that missing window, every camera in the hospital had gonepletely dark. Even the ones that should have shown her heading down to Annie''s room. Was there any way left to prove she hadn''t been in Mr. Ratcliff''s room during those missing minutes?