Chapter 4: The Missing Minutes
The contractor was located that evening.
His name was Mark Ellis.
He confirmed Karen’s story.
He had inspected the gate because Karen had complained about it.
But he insisted he had left before the smoke appeared.
He also confirmed something else.
“The gate wasn’t just unlocked,” Mark said. “The latch had been damaged.”
Daniel asked whether he had repaired it.
“No. I told Karen I needed approval before doing anything.”
“Did anyone else know about the damaged gate?”
Mark hesitated.
“People who work around there probably did.”
That answer didn’t solve the case.
It created another problem.
Someone had known the protected forest had an access point.
The investigation expanded.
The county reviewed additional camera footage from nearby properties.
For nearly two days, nothing useful appeared.
Then a gap was discovered.
One camera had stopped recording for eleven minutes.
The outage happened shortly after Karen left the forest road.
Frank immediately remembered Karen’s angry reaction when he had first shown her the footage.
She had insisted the cameras could not tell the whole truth.
Maybe she had been right.
But there was still something she wasn’t saying.
Daniel confronted her again.
“Why didn’t you tell us about the damaged gate immediately?”
Karen sat at her kitchen table.
For once, there was no handbag swinging, no pointing finger, no raised voice.
“I was embarrassed.”
Daniel looked confused.
Karen continued.
“I complained about that gate three times. Nobody listened. Then I hired someone myself. I thought if I fixed the problem quietly, nobody would call me difficult again.”
Frank stood near the doorway.
“You should have told us.”
“I know.”
She looked toward him.
“You think I don’t know that?”
Her voice cracked.
For the first time, Frank saw something beneath the anger.
Karen wasn’t only afraid of being blamed.
She was afraid that no one would believe her.
But there was still one unanswered question.
“What did you see that afternoon?” Frank asked.
Karen stared at the table.
“I saw a truck.”
Frank waited.
“Near the service gate,” she said. “A dark pickup.”
“Whose?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see the driver?”
Karen shook her head.
“Only for a few seconds.”
“Then why didn’t you tell Daniel?”
Karen looked embarrassed.
“Because when I approached, the truck left.”
Frank frowned.
“And?”
“And I thought I’d imagined the whole thing.”
That was the missing piece.
Karen had seen a vehicle.
She had not reported it.
And now the investigators had to determine whether that truck had anything to do with the fire.
But before Daniel could leave, a new message arrived on his phone.
The county had recovered the missing eleven minutes.
And someone was visible inside them.
