Chapter 3 - The Camera Above the Stairwell
Adrienne Reed was through the doorway before anyone else reacted.
“Dana, stay with the kids.”
That was the first order my mother gave.
Not chase the person.
Not protect the computers.
Protect the kids.
Officer Granger followed her into the hall.
I stood.
“Talia,” Dana said.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good.”
“I meant I'm going with my mom.”
“No.”
I stared at her.
She almost smiled.
“Your mother gives orders faster than you do.”
The emergency lights cast a dull red glow through the office.
Caldwell picked up his desk phone.
Dead.
He tried his cell.
“No service.”
“Is that normal?” Dana asked.
“Absolutely not.”
Veronica held Bryce close.
“This is insane.”
Bryce pulled away.
“Mom, I need to tell you something.”
“Not now.”
“But—”
“Not now.”
Eli looked at me.
I could tell he had heard it too.
The fear in Bryce's voice.
This wasn't a kid worried about punishment anymore.
This was someone scared of what adults might discover.
“Bryce,” I said.
Veronica snapped around.
“Don't speak to him.”
Dana stepped between us.
“Nobody questions anybody.”
“I wasn't questioning him.”
“Yes, you were about to.”
Fair.
We waited.
Thirty seconds.
A minute.
Then footsteps returned.
Mom appeared first.
Granger behind her.
Nobody else.
“Gone,” Granger said.
“Who?” Caldwell asked.
“We don't know.”
Mom held something.
A flash drive.
“We found this on the records-room floor.”
Caldwell stared.
“That isn't school property.”
“How do you know?”
“Ours are encrypted and labeled.”
Mom handed it to Dana.
“Bag it.”
Veronica laughed nervously.
“Bag it? What is this now, a federal investigation?”
“No,” Mom said.
“Then why are your people collecting evidence?”
“Because someone shut down a school network immediately after we discovered altered records involving children.”
Caldwell looked toward his dead monitor.
“Could those things be connected?”
Dana answered.
“Probably.”
Bryce sat down.
His hands were shaking.
Veronica noticed.
“Bryce?”
He didn't answer.
“Bryce, look at me.”
“I told you.”
Her face changed.
“What?”
“I told you this was going too far.”
Nobody spoke.
Veronica moved toward him.
“What are you talking about?”
He looked at Eli.
Then at me.
“I didn't mean for any of this.”
“Bryce,” Veronica said carefully, “stop talking.”
Mom's eyes moved to her.
“Interesting advice.”
“He's a minor.”
“So is my daughter.”
Veronica had no answer.
The lights returned.
Computers restarted.
Caldwell hurried to his desk.
Dana stopped him.
“Don't log in.”
“Why?”
“Until we know how the network went down, assume the system is compromised.”
Caldwell backed away.
Granger's radio worked again.
He called for local technical support and requested that no one enter the records room.
Then Eli spoke.
“There’s another camera.”
Everyone turned.
“What?” Caldwell asked.
“Above the stairs.”
Caldwell frowned.
“There are no cameras inside that stairwell.”
“Yes, there are.”
“How do you know?”
Eli pointed upward.
“I count cameras.”
Veronica stared at him.
Eli's voice became quieter.
“There are forty-seven in the school.”
Caldwell shook his head.
“We have thirty-nine.”
“Forty-seven.”
Dana crouched.
“Where are the extra eight?”
Eli began listing locations.
North stairwell.
Old gym entrance.
Music corridor.
Loading dock.
Two outside the counseling office.
One near the records room.
And one above the stairwell where Bryce had confronted him.
Caldwell looked stunned.
“I've never authorized those.”
Mom and Dana exchanged a look.
“Show us,” Mom said.
We walked together.
Nobody wanted to stay behind anymore.
Eli led us toward the stairwell.
He stopped beneath a smoke detector.
“Inside.”
Granger looked up.
It appeared ordinary.
Dana called someone.
Ten minutes later, a district technician arrived.
He removed the casing.
Inside was a miniature camera.
Caldwell sat down on the stairs.
“Who installed that?”
The technician examined it.
“It's wired into the building.”
“How?”
“Someone knew the infrastructure.”
Veronica went pale.
Mom noticed.
“So this camera may have recorded the incident.”
Dana nodded.
“And possibly weeks before it.”
Eli hugged himself.
I understood.
If Bryce had been doing this repeatedly, the camera might have everything.
Caldwell looked toward Veronica.
“You funded the security renovation.”
Her head snapped toward him.
“So?”
“The athletic-complex project included rewiring this wing.”
“That proves nothing.”
“I didn't say it did.”
But he had thought it.
So had everyone else.
Dana asked the technician where the footage went.
He followed the cable.
Not to the school's security server.
To an independent recorder hidden above a ceiling tile.
Eight camera feeds.
Weeks of footage.
Someone had built a private surveillance system inside a middle school.
Granger stared at it.
“This just became much bigger.”
Mom shook her head.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“It was already big.”
She glanced toward me and Eli.
“Adults simply weren't paying attention.”
The technician connected a monitor.
Recordings appeared.
Dana selected the stairwell.
Yesterday.
Bryce cornering Eli.
Two days earlier.
Again.
Last week.
Again.
My stomach twisted.
Eli stared at the floor.
Bryce began crying.
Not loudly.
Just tears running down his face.
“I didn't want to.”
Veronica grabbed his shoulders.
“Stop.”
He pulled away.
“You told me he'd never say anything!”
The words echoed through the stairwell.
Eli looked up.
Veronica's face became empty.
Bryce covered his mouth.
Mom didn't move.
Neither did Granger.
Caldwell whispered, “Veronica?”
She backed toward the door.
“You don't understand.”
“Then explain.”
“I was protecting my son.”
“From what?”
She looked at Bryce.
He shook his head frantically.
Mom said, “From what, Mrs. Holloway?”
Veronica said nothing.
Dana scrolled through the footage.
Then stopped.
“There.”
The recording was from three weeks earlier.
An adult entered the stairwell.
Bryce followed.
A moment later, Eli appeared.
The adult turned toward the hidden camera.
For the first time, we saw the person's face.
Principal Caldwell stood beside me.
So it couldn't be him.
Veronica was beside Bryce.
So it wasn't her.
Granger leaned closer.
“I know that man.”
Caldwell looked sick.
“Who is he?”
Granger didn't answer immediately.
The man on the screen wore a district identification badge.
He spoke to Bryce.
Then took an envelope from his jacket.
Bryce shook his head.
The man pushed it into his hands.
Eli appeared at the landing.
The man noticed him.
The video had no clear audio.
But his reaction was unmistakable.
He pointed at Eli.
Then at Bryce.
Then made a sharp motion across his throat—not a threat of violence, but an unmistakable command to keep quiet.
Eli started backing away.
The man followed.
Dana froze the frame.
“Name.”
Caldwell leaned closer.
His face went white.
“That's Gerald Voss.”
“Who?”
“Our district operations director.”
Granger swore under his breath.
Mom remained calm.
“What does he control?”
Caldwell looked at the hidden recorder.
“Building security.”
“Anything else?”
“Student records.”
Veronica sat down hard on the stairs.
Bryce looked at her.
“Mom?”
She didn't answer.
Dana checked another camera.
The one outside the records room.
She rewound to twenty minutes earlier.
A figure appeared.
Baseball cap.
Maintenance jacket.
Head lowered.
He entered the records room.
Minutes later, the network died.
Then he ran.
Dana froze the image as he turned toward the camera.
Granger leaned in.
“That isn't Voss.”
“No,” Caldwell whispered.
Veronica made a strange sound.
I looked at her.
She knew him.
Mom saw it too.
“Who is he?”
Veronica's lips parted.
Before she could answer, Bryce's phone vibrated.
He looked down.
One new message.
No saved contact.
Only six words.
DON’T LET THEM OPEN THE DRIVE.
Bryce stared at it.
May you like
Then another message arrived.
I’M STILL INSIDE THE SCHOOL.
