Rowan stepped deeper into the security room, the dim glow from the monitors casting sharp angles across his face. He scanned the rows of equipment with a practiced sweep, already assessing what he could pull, what he could salvage, and what Vivian had tried and failed to erase. Ethan stood just behind him, arms folded, gaze steady, watching the machine cycle through a slow, glitching reboot.
A restored fragment blinked onto the main monitor: a corrupted thumbnail streaked with static, but unmistakably showing the hallway leading to the standards room. Rowan zoomed in, studying the timestamp.
"This is the window," Rowan murmured. "She tried to wipe the footage starting exactly ten minutes after this."
Ethan nodded once. "I knew she acted fast, but not that fast."
"When people panic," Rowan replied quietly, "speed becomes a confession."
Rowan keyed in a command on the console and began isolating fragments. Some were damaged beyond recognition, but others contained enough metadata to reconstruct the sequence. The system whirred as it processed his request.
Ethan walked the perimeter of the room, studying every detail, noting each indicator on the machines, every access alert, every trail she'd left behind. The security room smelled faintly of dust, warm plastic, and desperation—the desperation of someone who thought wiping a camera feed could erase consequences.
"Look at this," Rowan called.
Ethan returned to the console. A partially restored clip played, frames stuttering, broken by static, but the essentials were there: Vivian in the hallway, speaking sharply to someone off-frame, then Mara stepping into view, hesitant and visibly distressed.
Ethan's jaw tightened. He didn't look away.
The footage flickered again, but Rowan froze it just before the door closed behind Vivian and Mara.
"Even if the inside footage is corrupted," Rowan said, "this alone proves she took her in: without a parent, without consent."
"And she lied about it," Ethan added, voice hard.
"That's the part that matters most in court," Rowan said. "Intent and deception."