Chapter 8 - The Deleted Frame
While Hendricks and his men marched Carter down to the lower level, Clara and Arthur remained in the master suite for five minutes to secure the evidence. Clara sat at Arthur’s secondary workstation, transferring the bedroom surveillance footage, the diagnostic logs from the wheelchair, and the audio files onto three separate encrypted flash drives.
Suddenly, a system notification flashed on Clara’s screen: *PRIMARY SECURITY SERVER ROOM - DOOR ACCESS AUTHORIZED.*
Clara frowned, her fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard. "Mr. Blackwood. Someone just accessed the basement server room using an administrative override keycard."
Arthur’s jaw tightened. "Who?"
Clara pulled up the access log. "Keycard registered to Evelyn Blackwood. Five seconds ago."
"She’s trying to wipe the master hard drives," Arthur realized instantly. "Carter told her that the pool footage was stored on the main house rack. She doesn't know about my private, air-gapped backups. She thinks if she fries the central server, the footage of the terrace will be destroyed forever."
"I’m going," Clara said, already standing up and pocketing the revolver.
"Clara, wait—"
"If she initiates a physical degaussing sequence, the estate’s secondary safety systems could shut down," Clara insisted. "Hendricks is upstairs holding Carter. I can reach the basement through the service elevator in ninety seconds."
"Take two of my personal guards," Arthur ordered, his voice brooking no argument. "Do not engage her alone."
Clara nodded, sprinting out of the suite. Accompanied by two armed security guards, she descended the narrow, stone-walled service stairwell leading directly into the subterranean foundation of Blackwood Manor.
The basement was a labyrinth of exposed stone, wine cellars, and modern climate-controlled equipment rooms. As Clara rounded the corridor toward the heavy steel fire door of the server room, the unmistakable smell of burning ozone and electrical plastic hit her nose.
"Move!" Clara yelled to the guards.
They breached the server room door.
Inside, the blue LED status lights of twenty server racks flickered erratically. Standing near the central control terminal was Evelyn Blackwood. She had abandoned her high heels, her blonde hair was disheveled, and in her hands was a commercial-grade industrial demagnetizing wand—a tool used to sanitize decommissioned data drives. She was aggressively sweeping the magnetic head across the primary storage bays.
"Evelyn! Stop!" Clara shouted.
Evelyn spun around, her eyes wild, crazed with panic and hatred. She looked like a cornered animal.
"Stay back!" Evelyn shrieked, raising the heavy metal wand like a club. "You ruined everything! He was supposed to die in that water! He’s an old man who has lived his life! Why did you have to jump in?!"
"Because unlike you, some people have a soul," Clara said coldly, stepping forward while the two guards flanked the woman with their tasers drawn. "Put the tool down, Evelyn. The footage isn't even on those drives. Arthur backed it up to an off-site cloud server hours ago. You’re destroying empty storage."
Evelyn froze, the demagnetizer trembling in her hands. The reality of her total, absolute failure settled over her like a suffocating shroud. "No... no, that’s a lie..."
"It’s over," Clara said firmly. "Carter is already in handcuffs. He tried to inject potassium chloride into Arthur’s IV line ten minutes ago. He’s on tape. And so are you."
The industrial wand slipped from Evelyn’s numb fingers, clattering loudly against the raised floor tiles.
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The matriarch of the Blackwood family sank to her knees among the humming server racks, burying her face in her hands, weeping tears of pure, impotent rage.
***
