By midnight, Lily was resting comfortably in a private room at St. Jude's, her arm encased in a bright pink plaster cast and her painkillers keeping the worst of the injury at bay. Arthur sat in the stiff armchair beside her bed, his laptop open on his knees as his divorce attorney, Marcus Vance, sat across from him.
Marcus: Arthur, you need to think clearly. Evelyn’s family owns twenty percent of your firm's shares, and her father is on your board of directors. If you accuse her of felony child abuse without irrefutable proof, they will ruin you financially before the case even hits a courtroom.
Arthur: She pushed my daughter off a balcony, Marcus! I don't care about the firm, I don't care about the shares, and I certainly don't care about her father’s money!
Marcus: I understand your rage, but the police officer’s initial report says there are no physical prints on the railing that prove a push versus a fall. It's a seven-year-old's word against an adult's statement.
Arthur: Evelyn hid the broken picture frame in her purse before I walked through the door. Lily confirmed the frame broke right where she fell. Evelyn cleaned up glass while my daughter was screaming on the floor!
Marcus: Did the police search her purse?
Arthur: No, they didn't have a warrant for her personal belongings during a preliminary welfare check! She probably threw it in the incinerator or a dumpster by now!
Marcus: Then we need something stronger. Something that proves intent or a pattern of behavior. Did you install any security cameras inside the house when you renovated last year?
Arthur froze, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. He recalled the smart-home installation he had paid for eight months ago, right after his first wife passed away.
Arthur: I put motion-activated security sensors in the foyer and the main hallways... but Evelyn insisted we remove the indoor cameras three months ago for privacy reasons.
Marcus: Did you actually remove the wiring, or did you just unplug the main hub?
Arthur: The technician set up a dual-cloud backup system for the entry sensors and the nanny cam hidden in the decorative oak clock on the mantle... I forgot it was even there.
Marcus: An active nanny cam in the main foyer?
Arthur: It was wired directly into the house's emergency power grid. Evelyn didn't even know it existed because I had it installed before she moved in!
Marcus leaned forward, a razor-sharp smile spreading across his face as he tapped his legal pad with a pen.
Marcus: Arthur, if that clock camera was running when you walked through the door, it captured everything that happened in that foyer—including her cleaning up the scene before you arrived.
Arthur: I need to get back to the house right now.
Marcus: Do not go alone. I'm calling the lead investigator, Detective Miller. We are going to access that cloud server together, right in front of the police.
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