Chapter 10 - Vanessa’s Story Breaks
Vanessa requested another interview.
Her attorney sat beside her.
She wore a navy suit.
No jewelry.
No makeup.
The fragile look was deliberate.
Ruiz began with the staircase.
Vanessa repeated the story.
“Elena rushed at me.”
Ruiz played the footage.
Vanessa stopped.
Then changed the story.
“Elena intimidated me.”
Ruiz played the audio.
Vanessa changed again.
“I panicked.”
Then Ruiz played the seven seconds after the fall.
Vanessa’s voice:
“Finally.”
Her attorney asked for a pause.
Ruiz did not argue.
When they returned, Vanessa looked less polished.
Ruiz placed Lucas’s photograph on the table.
Gregory.
Vanessa.
The terrace camera.
Vanessa stared at it.
“Where did you get that?”
The question came too quickly.
Ruiz noticed.
“So you recognize it?”
Vanessa said nothing.
Then came the Mercer land deal.
The failed camera.
Gregory’s signature.
The old voicemail.
Vanessa’s face hardened.
“Elena planned this.”
Ruiz almost smiled.
“Elena did not plan what happened to Lucas five years ago.”
Vanessa looked away.
Then she made her biggest mistake.
“Gregory said that camera was already broken.”
Silence.
Her attorney closed his eyes.
Ruiz leaned forward.
“Which camera?”
Vanessa froze.
The original police report never stated publicly which camera failed.
Only investigators.
Property staff.
And whoever had been involved.
Vanessa tried to recover.
“I assumed.”
Ruiz wrote something down.
Vanessa stared at the table.
May you like
For the first time, her story had not merely cracked.
It had begun collapsing inward.
