A shadow moved in the doorway. Daniel stood in the hall light. He’d heard all of it. The grief was gone from his face. What was left looked like granite.

Chapter 4 — On the Record

The next morning ran like a command post.

Daniel started by calling the mall’s security desk, phone on speaker in the middle of the kitchen island. A supervisor named Alvarez listened to the whole timeline without interrupting once.

When Daniel gave him the zone marker for the pillar and the five-hour window, the line went quiet.

“Mr. Hayes,” Alvarez said, and the corporate politeness had gone out of his voice. “I’ll pull the surveillance archives today. But I need to tell you that if the footage supports this, mall policy requires us to file a formal incident report with local authorities.”

“File it,” Daniel said, without a pause. “And send me the copies.”