THE BILLIONAIRE'S ALIBI

The Missing Twenty-three Minutes

Ella had always believed that a lie had a shape.

Sometimes it was obvious, a contradiction in a statement, a detail that changed each time the story was repeated.

Other times it was hidden beneath perfectly arranged facts, waiting for someone patient enough to notice what didn't belong.

The murder of Mia Laurent was beginning to look like the second kind.

Ella sat behind her desk, the hotel surveillance footage paused on her computer screen.

11:17 p.m.

Elias Park walking toward the elevator , her fingers hovered over the keyboard and she replayed it, again.

He wore a black suit the same one he wore that night she saw him at the bar. His phone in his hand.

The elevator doors opening, Elias stepping inside, the doors closing, nothing unusual.

Ella watched the footage again, then once more., something about it bothered her.

Not the image, but the timestamp. She rewound the footage to 11:10, a hotel employee pushed a housekeeping cart down the hallway,11:12, a couple exited another suite, and at 11:14 the hallway was empty.

11:16 nothing, 11:17 Elias entered the elevator, 11:18 the camera went black.

Ella frowned, she checked the timestamp. Then she replayed the next available footage.

And at exactly 11:41 the camera returned, her fingers stopped moving immediately.She has found what she's looking for.

Twenty-three minutes, she sat forward.

“That’s impossible.” The security system wasn't supposed to have gaps and absolutely not in a hotel like Parkview Grand.

Every hallway was monitored continuously, particularly the penthouse floor. Ella checked the adjacent camera.

11:18 black,11:19 black,11:20 black.

Every camera covering the penthouse corridor had gone offline simultaneously.

She leaned back slowly, that wasn't a malfunction. It was a deliberate interruption, someone had created a twenty-three-minute blind spot.

But Ella wasn't convinced the blackout had happened because Elias had left.

The timing was too convenient, she looked again at the footage 11:17 Elias entered the elevator, the image was clear, too clear.

She zoomed in, his face was visible, his clothes were visible, his movement was visible. Everything except one thing.

Where he had actually come from.

Ella frowned, the camera showed him entering the elevator. It did not show him leaving the hotel.

She sat back, that distinction suddenly felt important. Ella pulled up the hotel's technical records, the system showed a scheduled maintenance window.

She stared at it. Scheduled maintenance? At midnight? No.

The outage had begun forty-two minutes earlier than the supposed maintenance period. Someone had altered the record.

Her eyes narrowed.

The missing twenty-three minutes weren't simply missing. Someone had gone to great lengths to create them. Someone had decided exactly what investigators would be able to see.

Ella picked up her phone.

“Harrison.”

“Tell me.”

“Who has administrative access to Parkview Grand's surveillance system?”

“The hotel security manager, the owner, and the contracted security company.”

“Names.”

She waited.

Harrison gave them to her.

“Anyone else?”

“Not officially.”

“Officially isn't what I asked.”

Silence.

“I'm checking.”

“Check faster.”

She ended the call, her gaze returned to the screen.

Twenty-three minutes, that was all someone had needed. But perhaps not for the reason she first thought.

Ella opened the hotel's guest records, she searched the penthouse.

Elias Park.

Then she searched the room where she had stayed the previous night. Her own reservation appeared.

She stared at her name.

For a second, the memory of that night returned with uncomfortable clarity.

The room, the stranger , the decision not to exchange names, the morning she had walked away believing she would never see him again.

Ella closed the record, that part of her life was irrelevant. Except now, the hotel was a crime scene.

And she had been there.

She continued searching, a second guest had accessed the penthouse floor shortly before the cameras went dark.

Ella frowned.

The access record belonged to a temporary security credential.

She opened the details, the credential had been issued three days earlier.

Name: S. Voss.

Ella went completely still. “Seraphina.”