Chapter 5 - The Loading Dock
The rain began to pour over downtown Chicago, turning the morning sky into a murky slate gray.
Maya drove her nondescript sedan into the narrow alleyway behind the Whitmore Hotel.
Steam rose from the commercial laundry vents, masking the rear service entrance in a thick white fog.
A heavy metal door opened, and a broad-shouldered man in a gray security uniform stepped into the alley.
He was holding a plain black umbrella in one hand and a silver flash drive in the other.
Maya rolled down her window just enough to let the cool, wet air inside.
Marcus Diaz approached the vehicle, looking up and down the alley to ensure he wasn't followed.
"This is the uncompressed, timestamped multi-angle footage from the ballroom entrance," Diaz said, handing the drive through the window.
I reached out and took the cold piece of metal, gripping it like a lifeline.
"Does it show everything?" I asked, my voice trembling with anticipation.
Diaz rested his hand on the car door, his eyes dark with anger.
"It shows your brother walking over to your table forty minutes before the incident," Diaz explained.
"He pretends to lean down to adjust his shoe, slips his phone into your daughter's hanging jacket pocket, and walks away."
"Then, at eight-fifteen PM, it captures him grabbing the oak board and swinging it with full downward momentum."
"There was no trip, there was no stumble, it was a direct physical assault on a defenseless child."
A tear slipped down my cheek, hot against my skin.
"Why would he do this?" I whispered, staring down at the drive.
"What was on that phone that made him so desperate?"
Diaz leaned in a little closer, lowering his voice so only we could hear.
"Before the hotel lawyers told me to delete the footage, I pulled the hotel's Wi-Fi network logs from Preston's table," Diaz said.
"Ten minutes before he staged the theft, Preston received an urgent encrypted file transfer."
"Someone was sending him internal audit documents from his firm."
"He wasn't trying to hide the phone from you, Evelyn."
"He was staging a public theft so he could claim his phone was stolen before he could be questioned by federal regulators."
"He used your little girl as a human scapegoat to cover up a multi-million-dollar financial crime."
Maya let out a low whistle, her journalist instincts instantly flaring up.
"That's corporate embezzlement," Maya stated flatly.
"Get out of here before the noon server wipe," Diaz advised, tapping the roof of the car.
"Take this directly to the State's Attorney's special prosecutions bureau."
May you like
Maya put the car in reverse, backing out of the alley into the streaming rain.
We had the smoking gun, and the clock was ticking.
