Chapter 6 - THE MISSING HOUR
Security footage reconstructed the evening.
6:42 p.m. — Nora enters dining room carrying tea service.
6:47 — I sit.
6:49 — Nora leaves.
6:50 — Lily appears in hallway, pauses, then retreats.
6:51 — Nora returns.
6:52 — Lily runs toward dining room.
The confrontation.
7:03 — paramedics enter.
7:12 — ambulance leaves.
7:14 — Nora walks toward service corridor.
7:18 — she enters my study.
That was the missing piece.
Nora had not merely gone toward the trash.
She entered my study while everyone focused on me.
The study camera showed only the doorway.
Not the safe.
But electronic access logs recorded the safe opening at 7:20 using a code.
My code.
How did she know it?
For years, I assumed nobody did.
Then I remembered one moment.
Grace’s final month.
I opened the safe while Nora stood behind me holding a medication tray.
I had not shielded the keypad.
One observation.
One remembered number sequence.
Maybe.
Investigators later found a handwritten sequence inside Nora’s room matching the code with two digits reversed, then corrected underneath.
She had apparently worked it out.
The safe opened.
At 7:23, Nora left my study carrying something flat beneath her uniform jacket.
At 7:31, police arrived.
The memorandum itself was later found hidden behind a loose panel in Nora’s closet.
Now the tea and money connected.
The plan looked increasingly clear:
Drug me enough to create a medical diversion.
Use the confusion to remove Grace’s memorandum.
Destroy or hide it.
Continue concealing fraudulent household payments.
Then Lily ran in too early.
The drug was already in the tea.
May you like
Nora tried to stop her.
The entire scheme collapsed because a seven-year-old refused to stay quiet.
