Chapter 4
Raffaele reopened the foundry’s internal archives.
The building was privately owned, but its security systems had been professionally maintained for years.
Most footage from five years earlier was long gone.
Access logs survived.
At 8:42 p.m., Beatrice entered the private molding gallery.
At 8:46, Sofia followed.
At 8:49, Grace entered.
At 8:53, Preston entered.
At 9:07, an emergency call reported Beatrice’s fall.
Four people had been inside that area.
Only three came out alive.
Raffaele looked at the old report.
Preston had told police he entered after hearing Beatrice shouting.
The access log contradicted him.
He was already inside fourteen minutes before the emergency call.
Raffaele confronted him through attorneys.
Preston changed his story.
He claimed he had forgotten exactly when he entered.
Five years was a long time.
Memory changed.
Raffaele almost admired the irony.
Everyone in the Hale family now wanted memory to be unreliable.
Except when Sofia remembered nothing.
Then they had trusted it completely.
Grace offered a different explanation.
She said she entered because Beatrice had become hysterical.
Preston followed to calm her.
Sofia became frightened.
Grace gave Sofia “something mild” because she was panicking.
Raffaele stared at her.
“You drugged my daughter without telling her?”
Grace stiffened.
“I was helping.”
“With what?”
“She was shaking.”
“She was twenty-three.”
“She trusted me.”
Raffaele’s voice dropped.
“Not enough to consent.”
Grace looked away.
Then Sofia remembered another line.
Beatrice screaming at Grace:
“You already destroyed one woman for him. You won't do it again.”
Nobody knew what it meant.
But Grace did.
May you like
The second Sofia repeated the sentence, Grace’s face changed.
Raffaele noticed.
