Hal held up his hand to quiet me. Or perhaps to comfort me. “What do you have for us?” he asked the group, keeping his eye on the legal representative.

The security director said, “We’d like you to fill us in on any information you may have that can lend meaning to these images.”

“Sure,” said Hal, and we both sat down.

Ms. Whittier dimmed the lights; the facilities manager pressed play, and we all watched the dark and grainy video footage. The outside of the building. Light post. Lamplight over snow. Snowflakes falling. The camera switched to the parking lot.

“As you can see, our system catches various angles for us to put together,” said the director of security. “So we have full coverage.”

The view switched back to the outside of the building. Most of the windows were dark, but a few glowed with dim lights. In one room, a figure approached the window and slid it open. The figure disappeared, and the camera switched to the parking lot view. Most of the vehicles were covered in snow. Two were clean, and we could see exhaust coming from one of the clean ones, a truck with its engine running.

“Pause it here,” said Ms. Whittier. “The south wall of Building C. That open window is the room where the patient, who was your surrogate, was assigned.”

“Her name is Cally,” said Hal.

Ms. Whittier slid a box of tissues toward me, and I ignored them.

“Let’s keep watching,” said the director of security, resuming the video. The figure returned to the window, leaned out, and placed a bundle on the ledge.

“What is that?” I said, stunned.

“Shh, let’s watch,” said Hal. The video switched to the parking lot. A tall figure emerged from the truck and walked toward the building. Snow fell heavily through the downcast light of the lamp. Back at the south wall, the figure climbed out the window, sat on the ledge, dropped the bundle a short distance into the arms of the other figure, and then jumped, tumbling onto a snowbank.

I let out a yelp and Hal reached over to hold me. “Come on,” he said. “Keep watching.” The camera switched to the parking lot as the two figures walked to the truck, loaded the bundle, and got in. The video switched back to the south wall and showed nothing further of interest. The next time we saw the parking lot, the truck was gone.

“Whose truck was that?” I asked.

“Did you get the license plate?” Hal asked. No one answered.

The facilities manager hit the stop button, then rewind. We listened to the VCR rev itself up to begin the rewind process. Ms. Whittier turned up the lights to bright.