I sat down on the edge of my sofa, my mind racing through the technical details.

The camera in Patricia’s kitchen was a standard high-definition smart-home model.

I remembered helping her select it two years ago because she wanted something that would back up automatically.

Those systems did not just store data on the phone; they saved everything to a cloud server.

Even if a file was deleted from the user interface, the raw data often remained cached in the system’s storage.

I didn’t have the technical skills to retrieve a deleted cloud file from a secured network.

But I knew people who did.

During the billing fraud investigation at the hospital last year, the board had brought in a specialized firm.

They had recovered encrypted emails that had been deleted three times over.

I needed someone who could do the same for Patricia’s camera feed.

I picked up my phone again and scrolled through my contacts until I found Mara Singh’s name.

Mara was still at the hospital, likely finishing her shift in the trauma unit.

I dialed her number.