Chapter 6 - The Woman in the ReflectionNaomi Price did not like anonymous evidence.
Not because anonymous sources were necessarily unreliable, but because their motives and knowledge were difficult to establish.
She examined the document Tara had received and placed it beside the museum's publicly available financial report.
“The payment amount might be significant,” Naomi said, “but the photocopy alone won't prove the invoice was false.”
Tara nodded.
“Someone wanted me to see it.”
“Yes. We need to know who.”
They were sitting in Naomi's office on Monday morning.
Outside, Market Street traffic moved beneath a gray sky.
Tara had slept badly.
Every time she closed her eyes, she heard the slap.
She had begun to recognize that her anxiety wasn't limited to fear of another confrontation. She was afraid of being powerless in a system where other people could rewrite what happened to her.
Naomi set down the invoice.
“I've sent preservation demands to the museum, the foundation, and the parties we can identify. We also need to discuss a civil claim against Daniel personally.”
Tara looked away.
“He has resources.”
“That doesn't exempt him from accountability.”
“He'll hire ten lawyers.”
“Possibly.”
“Then they'll turn my life upside down.”
Naomi waited.
Tara stared at the window.
“My brother watched me work two jobs so he could go to college. My mother tells everyone I'm the responsible one. Now people think I hurt a little girl.”
Her voice broke.
“I can't afford to lose everything proving something that should have been obvious.”
Naomi's expression softened.
“Then we'll make decisions one step at a time.”
A knock interrupted them.
The receptionist entered.
“There's a visitor asking for Ms. Morgan.”
“Who?”
“Jo Park.”
Tara didn't recognize the name.
Naomi asked the receptionist to show her in.
A young woman entered carrying a camera bag.
She appeared to be in her late twenties.
“I was at the museum,” Jo explained. “When the sculpture moved.”
Tara sat forward.
“You saw it?”
“Some of it.”
Jo had been one of the two visitors near the glass display case.
She was a freelance architectural photographer, visiting Alder to study the way natural light entered the gallery.
She had been photographing reflections on the polished steel sculpture when the incident began.
“I didn't realize what I captured until I went through the pictures,” Jo said.
She opened her laptop.
The first image showed The Balance from an oblique angle.
Its mirror-polished surface reflected a portion of the gallery.
Near the sculpture stood a woman in an ivory jacket.
Celeste.
Beside her was Ava.
Jo enlarged the image.
Celeste's arm was extended.
Her index finger pointed toward the sculpture.
Ava appeared to be stepping across the brass line.
Tara's heart raced.
“That's before I reached them.”
Jo nodded.
“I checked the camera's capture sequence. The images were taken seconds apart.”
The next photograph showed the sculpture beginning to lean.
The third showed Tara entering the edge of the frame.
The fourth showed her reaching toward Ava.
Naomi leaned closer.
“Do you still have the original files?”
“Yes. RAW files and the camera card.”
“Have you edited them?”
“Only these preview copies.”
“Please don't change or delete the originals.”
Jo nodded.
“I haven't.”
Tara stared at Celeste's reflected image.
It didn't prove what the grandmother said to Ava.
But it showed that Celeste had been actively directing the child's attention toward the sculpture immediately before it moved.
It also showed the precise reason Tara ran.
For the first time, Tara could see the rescue from outside her own memory.
She began to cry.
Jo looked alarmed.
“I'm sorry.”
Tara shook her head.
“No. It's just…”
She took a breath.
“Someone else saw it.”
At the museum, Miriam Voss convened an emergency meeting with Graham Pike and Martin Keene.
The gallery remained closed.
An insurance representative had requested an independent engineering assessment.
Miriam was furious.
“We can't call it a routine maintenance issue when our insurer believes structural integrity may have been compromised.”
Graham kept his voice steady.
“There's no evidence of deliberate interference.”
“I didn't say deliberate.”
Martin shifted.
“The original camera recordings are still on the security server.”
Miriam turned toward him.
“Have they been preserved?”
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
Martin hesitated.
“The public hallway feed was exported.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
“The primary gallery files are under restricted access.”
Miriam folded her arms.
“Restricted by whom?”
“Graham requested temporary control while legal reviewed the incident.”
She looked at the CFO.
Graham didn't flinch.
“The preservation issue is sensitive.”
“Then give legal the footage. Not your preferred selection.”
Martin opened his laptop.
“There is another complication.”
He displayed a camera access log.
The video had been exported on Wednesday afternoon.
The user account belonged to a museum communications administrator.
The administrator had subsequently denied making the export.
Miriam studied the log.
“Can someone use another employee's account?”
Martin looked at Graham.
“With sufficient administrative privileges.”
Graham closed his folder.
“I don't think speculation is productive.”
Miriam glanced toward the window.
For eleven years, she had believed the Carrington family was the reason the museum survived difficult financial periods.
Now she was beginning to wonder whether dependence had made her careless.
“Preserve every log,” she said.
“Every version of that recording. Every access record. No exceptions.”
That evening, Naomi sent the photographs to Elena with Jo's permission after Elena had contacted the attorney about Ava's account.
Elena opened them on her laptop.
In the reflected image, she recognized her former mother-in-law's pearl-trimmed jacket.
She enlarged the second photograph.
The steel support was visibly moving.
But it wasn't the movement that frightened her most.
Something small lay near the base of the sculpture.
An orange maintenance tag.
She had seen that style of tag before.
Larch contractors used them to identify temporary adjustments that had not received final approval.
Elena called Luis.
“Were there any maintenance tags attached when you inspected the sculpture?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. Why?”
She stared at the photograph.
“Because someone removed a warning tag before you arrived.”
Luis went silent.
Then he said, “Elena, if that tag was on the support assembly before the incident, someone knew the installation wasn't secure.”
Elena looked again at Ava's tiny reflected figure.
May you like
Her daughter had been standing beneath a display that someone had knowingly left unstable.
And Celeste had been pointing directly toward it.
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