Chapter 37
JOSHUA
I sit in the dim light of the security office, a small, almost forgotten room tucked away behind the IT department. I’m the only person with access to the room and the CCTV system, so it isn’t a room most people even know about.
The glow of the monitors paint my face with their flickering blue tinged light.
It’s cold in here, colder than I remember the room being – even though rarely used, it’s only a small room and my body heat should have made it warm enough by now.
I think that maybe it’s just me that’s cold.
I’ve got this chill running through me that won’t go away—not until I know what really happened between Molly and Sarah.
I have a feeling that whatever has happened between them, I’m not going to like it, but I need to know the real story and not just the she said, she said version of events.
Molly is in the hospital and knowing that she’s hurt pains me too.
I should be there at the hospital with her.
Every part of me screams at me to leave this and just go to her, to see her, to hold her hand, to hear her side of the story.
Because whatever Molly’s side of the story turns out to be, I know she’s the one I will believe.
But I guess that’s why I’m doing this, because I know I will struggle to be impartial and if I have actual footage of what happened, then I can’t be swayed one way or the other.
So yeah, I need the truth first, before I can go to the hospital and see Molly.
This will be the definitive truth, not just the fragments I’ve heard, and not the whispers floating around the staff lounge – which didn’t take long at all to get going - or the cautious looks thrown my way like I might explode. I need to see it for myself.
There’s a tight knot in my chest as I pull up the CCTV software.
Most of the staff likely don’t even know about the CCTV system because it’s been in place for so long, and those that do know it exists think the system only covers the building’s exterior.
That’s by design. It’s easier to keep people honest when they don’t know they’re being watched inside too.
The cameras in the stairwells and corridors are hidden, unobtrusive, practically invisible unless you know where to look.
I didn’t think I’d ever use them for something like this, but I’m grateful to have them now that this has happened.
The current date and the time blink on the screen, a reminder of how recent this was - just an hour or two ago.
It still feels unreal. I asked Frieda, one of my most trusted and long serving employees what happened, and she told me she didn’t see the actual incident, but she told me what she did see.
I like that she sticks only to those facts, not adding in what Sarah told her after the event or anything like that.
She told me that Sarah said she had to speak to Molly about something and left their work area. Shortly after that, Molly and Sarah were seen heading toward the east stairwell together, and then only Sarah came back, shouting for someone to call an ambulance, saying that Molly fell.
Rumors are already flying that Molly was pushed, but Sarah has already said it was an accident, that Molly slipped. None of the people I’ve caught gossiping about Molly being pushed actually saw what happened. They just love the drama, I guess.
Having said that, there’s a part of me that thinks there might be something to what they are saying.
It’s something to do with the look in Sarah’s eyes when she told me what supposedly happened.
It wasn’t sadness that Molly got hurt, or even shock that she had found herself embroiled in this mess.
It was a performance. A good performance, I’ll give her that.
Someone who didn’t know her and Molly as well as I do might have taken it all in, but not me.
I whip through hours of footage on the CCTV system, fast forwarding through empty corridors, static shadows, the occasional orderly passing through.
After that comes the early morning rush where everyone is rushing into work.
People come and go down the hallways regularly after that and although I’m still fast forwarding, it’s at a slower speed than before.
Lunch time comes bringing another rush hour situation and then it all calms down again.
My fingers hover over the keyboard, skipping frame by frame now.
I see Molly leave her desk, presumably to have her lunch. I skip forward, waiting for her to return, but instead, Sarah appears and goes to Molly’s desk where she stands and waits until Molly comes back into the shot again.
There. The two women have spoken briefly, and Molly is now following Sarah towards the east stairwell. I track them to the door, and then I switch views to the east stairwell camera. The time stamp on the main hallway footage showed it was one forty-two pm when the women entered the stairwell.
I skip ahead on the stairwell footage until I find the same time stamp. Sarah and Molly come through the door, and I slow the footage down to real time, just letting it play normally.
My heart is slamming in my chest as I ready myself for what I’m about to watch. I feel like it beats louder than the low hum of the equipment.
On the screen, Molly walks into frame. She’s tense, kind of pissed off looking.
Her shoulders are tight, and her lips are pressed into a line.
A few seconds later, Sarah enters behind her, her steps quicker, more aggressive.
, although she too looks pissed off. The women start talking to each other.
There’s no audio, but from their expression and their body language, it is clear that they are arguing about something.
Then it happens. Sarah hits herself square in the nose. Bang. Blood pours out of it.
The punch she gives herself is so fast, so deliberate, that I almost miss it.
She raises her hand, clenches it, and punches herself in the face a second time, causing a thin mist of blood droplets to spray through the air.
She is freely bleeding, the blood cascading down her chin and onto her blouse.
I blink.
“What the fuck?” I whisper.
The two women are arguing again and after a few minutes, it looks like Molly tries to get back out of the stairwell, but Sarah stands in front of the door, blocking Molly’s path. The argument continues for a bit longer, and then Sarah shoves her, hard.
There is no hesitation, no pause, and it certainly wasn’t self-defense. Even if Molly said something threatening, she wasn’t physically attacking Sarah like Sarah had claimed.
I rewind a little bit of the footage and watch it again as Sarah pushes Molly square in the chest with both hands. It’s not a slip. It’s not an accident. It’s controlled, intentional. I feel sick watching it, but I can’t stop now. I have to see what happens to poor Molly.
Molly stumbles and it looks like she’s going to fall, but then she grabs the railing and stops herself from falling. Only she must have landed funny on one of her feet, because her ankle rolls and then she’s falling for real this time.
The sickening grace of her falling hits me like a punch to the gut.
Her arms flail as she twists in midair, trying to catch herself, but there’s nothing to grab.
She disappears from the frame, and I’m glad I don’t have to watch her bouncing down every stair.
Even without watching the footage, I can imagine the sound of her body hitting the stairs, over and over again, and then the awful silence that would follow as she landed at the bottom of the stairs, broken and bruised.
I reach out to stop the play back of the footage, but I notice Sarah standing at the top of the flight of stairs and I find myself watching her for a moment as she stares down the stairwell for a beat.
If there was any doubt in my mind that she had meant for Molly to fall, the expression on her face would have scrubbed it clean away.
She’s smiling – a wide, nasty looking smile that kind of reminds me of the Grinch’s smile.
Then she looks around, composes herself, and rushes back into the hallway, out of frame.
Sarah admitted she had pushed Molly, but she claimed it was in self-defense. The only person swinging hands was herself. I can’t believe she likely broke her own nose just to make Molly look bad.
I shoot to my feet, the chair rolling back and slamming into the wall. My breath catches. My stomach twists so hard that I nearly gag.
Everything in me wants to go straight to the police, or to confront Sarah, and to scream at her, to ask her what exactly the fuck she was thinking.
But the weight of it all - of knowing the truth and needing to act, but not sure yet which action is the correct one - nearly knocks me flat.
This is new to me. I’m usually decisive and can make quick decisions, but this is different.
Personal. The woman I love – and yes, I do love Molly, there’s no getting around that – has been hurt when under my supervision and in my care, I suppose you could say.
I sit back down and run my hands over my face.
I replay the footage. Once. Twice. A third time, slower, just to be sure.
I tell myself it’s because I can’t afford to leave any room for doubt.
I need to know this isn’t some trick of the camera, some optical illusion.
But the truth is, it’s not that. I’m just torturing myself, watching Molly get hurt, feeling sicker with each viewing until I tell myself that’s enough.
It’s real. I can see it’s real from Sarah’s posture, and the force behind the shove. Molly didn’t even move towards her, let alone run at her like she was attacking her. And then the bit that really turns my blood cold, the way Sarah smiles after Molly hits the ground, like she’s proud of herself.
I stop the footage from replaying over again and I exhale hard, scrubbing a hand down my face.
I feel dirty just watching this, like I’m complicit in it somehow, even though I had nothing to do with it.
I tell myself not to be silly, but the niggling feeling doesn’t quite go away.
I know what Sarah is like and I knew how much she wanted the job Molly got.
I should have watched her more closely, made sure she wasn’t planning to do anything rash.
But truthfully, even if I had kept an eye on her, I wouldn’t have been watching for this.
I would have expected an argument, some bitchy comments maybe. But this? God no.
I wonder if that’s even what the fight was about.
It’s been a fair amount of time since Molly was promoted.
Why would Sarah wait until now to act? But if it’s not about the job, why would Sarah do this?
Molly wouldn’t hurt a fly. She avoids confrontation like it’s contagious so I don’t think she’s been antagonising Sarah, and I don’t believe for a second that Molly was bragging about having me under her thumb – I didn’t believe it before but now, after seeing what I have just seen, I will never believe another word that comes out of Sarah’s mouth again.
I glance at the timestamp on the footage again. One forty-two and seventeen seconds. I grab a notebook and pen from the desk drawer and jot it down. I’ll need to make copies, secure the footage, maybe send a copy to the police and definitely one to HR.
And most importantly, I need to talk to Molly.
Not later. Not after the meetings and following the protocol and cutting through all the red tape.
Fuck that shit. I need to see that she’s ok with my own eyes and I need to hear her voice, hear her say she doesn’t blame me for this, I guess. But mostly, I just want her to be ok.