Chapter 7: Second Sub-Basement

The camera archive lived in the second sub-basement, behind a steel door and a keypad that Mateo opened without looking.

It was cold down there, and it hummed.

Gray metal shelves ran to the ceiling, each one stacked with labeled drives.

"Two years of the fourteenth floor," Mateo said. "Everything the hall camera saw."

"And nobody has ever pulled it."

"Nobody has ever asked."

I stood with my arms crossed against the chill and told him the rest.

I told him my father had moved the wedding up nine days.

I told him the vote on my mother's shares was now the twentieth.

I told him Preston had said I would get exactly what I was promised.

"By who?" Mateo asked.

"That is the question."

He leaned on a shelf and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand.

I noticed for the first time how tired he was, with dark smudges under his eyes.

"I'll say it plain," I said. "I don't know you, and you've done nothing but help me. I need a rule."

"A rule."

"Whatever either of us finds, the other hears within the hour."

I held up a finger.

"No editing it first, and no waiting to see if it matters."

He did not answer right away.

Something crossed his face, and I took it for a man weighing a hard bargain.

"Within the hour," he said at last.

"Say you agree."

"I agree."

He said it very quietly, and he did not look at me when he did.

"Good," I said. "Now I need the drive for last March."

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