The Security Footage Nobody Checked
Chapter 07 - The Security Footage Nobody Checked
It was Grace Iwu, the document examiner, who first asked the question that should have occurred to everyone sooner.
"Does the house have security cameras," she asked, during a follow-up meeting three days after the fall. "Coastal properties this size usually do, especially with a family business tied to the estate."
Ethan felt foolish for not thinking of it immediately, shock and grief having crowded out the kind of practical clarity that would have come naturally under calmer circumstances.
"There's a system," he said slowly. "My father had it installed years ago, mostly for insurance purposes. I haven't thought about it once since the fall."
The system, when Ethan finally accessed it, covered the main entrances and the ground floor common areas thoroughly, but the upper balcony, considered a private family space rather than a security concern, had only a single camera angled toward the hallway leading to it, not the balcony itself directly.
Still, the hallway footage showed something useful.
Vanessa, in a dark jacket she hadn't been wearing earlier that evening, moving down the hallway toward the balcony access exactly eleven minutes before the fall, and returning down the same hallway, jacket removed, four minutes after it.
"That's her," Sophie said, watching the grainy footage with her heart pounding. "That's the timing. That's exactly the window."
"It's not a confession," Ethan said carefully, though his own voice carried barely controlled fury. "It places her in the hallway. It doesn't show her on the balcony itself, or her hand on your back."
"It's enough to take to the police alongside everything else," Sophie said. "The forged will. The financial discrepancies. Now the timeline and the jacket. Together, that's not circumstantial anymore. That's a case."
Ethan called Harold Pruitt immediately, requesting he coordinate directly with law enforcement rather than continuing to handle any part of this as a purely internal family matter.
"I should have insisted on this the moment it happened," Harold said, guilt audible in his voice. "I let family loyalty slow down what should have been an immediate, formal response."
"We all did," Ethan said. "I think we're all still learning how badly we underestimated what Vanessa was capable of."
Detective Sarah Voss, assigned to the case once it was formally reported, reviewed the compiled evidence with the specific, careful thoroughness of someone who understood exactly how much a wealthy family's instinct toward quiet internal resolution could complicate an active investigation.
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"This is a strong circumstantial case," Voss said, after reviewing everything. "The forged will gives motive. The financial records corroborate the motive further. The security footage places her at the scene within the exact window. We'll need forensic confirmation on the will itself and a formal interview with your sister before any arrest, but this is more than enough to proceed seriously."
Sophie felt something loosen in her chest for the first time since the atrium, the specific relief of watching a private family nightmare finally become something an actual, competent authority intended to properly investigate.
