The Missing Server
Chapter 06 - The Missing Server
At 2:17 the following morning, the Grand Ashford’s alarm system went offline.
A masked intruder entered through the ballroom loading bay, cut the lock on the security office, and removed the central CCTV server.
Nothing else was stolen.
Maya arrived six minutes after the alarm.
The server rack was empty.
The backup drive had been smashed.
Adrian’s attorney issued a statement before police informed him of the theft. He claimed the disappearance proved hotel employees had fabricated evidence and destroyed the source to avoid forensic review.
“He knows too quickly,” Rivera said.
Maya was angrier with herself.
“I should have moved it.”
“You made a copy,” Claire reminded her.
“Of one clip. The central server held forty-eight hours.”
Forty-eight hours that could show who entered Adrian’s private dressing room, who removed the ring pillow, and who accessed the service corridor before the ceremony.
The hotel’s cloud system saved only motion thumbnails because Adrian had requested local storage for “guest privacy.”
He had designed the evidence to die in one place.
Maya searched the damaged office again.
A junior technician named Evan Cho admitted that the wedding network included an old analog camera not listed on the digital map. It had been installed inside a gilded wall clock after jewelry disappeared during events.
“Where does it record?” Maya asked.
Evan pointed beneath the ballroom stage.
“To a stand-alone unit. No network connection.”
Police opened the compartment.
The recorder was gone.
Only a severed cable remained.
Someone knew about the secret camera.
The list was short: Maya, Evan, the hotel owner—and Simone Vale, the wedding coordinator Adrian personally hired.
Simone vanished after the ceremony.
Her apartment was empty.
Her phone last connected near the Bennett estate.
Claire returned to the hotel room and found Noah awake beneath the blanket.
“Did Adrian ever mention Simone?”
Noah nodded.
“She gave me grape juice before the wedding. It tasted funny.”
Claire’s blood went cold.
“Did you drink it?”
“One sip. I poured it in a plant because it was gross.”
At the altar, Adrian’s lawyer claimed Noah behaved violently without reason.
A sedative or stimulant in the drink could have created the outburst they planned to film.
Maya searched ceremony photographs.
In one image, Simone stood behind the floral arch holding the velvet ring pillow.
In another, she slipped something into Noah’s jacket pocket.
The missing boutonnière pin.
Adrian had prepared his injury before the child approached him.
May you like
Noah had not attacked him.
He had been staged as an attacker.
