Chapter 3

The last drop of color vanished from Chloe's face.

I pulled out my digital recorder and held it up.

"Contradictory witness statements, fabricated physical evidence, staged injuries, and deliberate sabotage of the surveillance system."

"This is no longer a petty domestic dispute."

"This is criminal framing and filing a false police report."

I pulled out my phone and dialed 911.

Eleanor lunged forward and grabbed my wrist.

"Valerie, stop! Don't call the police! Chloe was just being impulsive!"

I looked down at her gripping fingers.

She flinched and let go.

"She was twenty-two years old when she staged this frame job, not two," I said coldly.

"B-but you didn't actually get hurt!" Eleanor pleaded.

Ethan stepped in, his face dark and sullen. "Everything is cleared up now."

"You're not going to jail, and your reputation is intact. Don't blow this up into a scandal we can't control."

I didn't waste another breath on them.

Disgust washed over me. I turned toward the front door, ready to walk out of the Vance family for good.

The butler hurried over and stopped me.

"Miss Valerie, your grandfather just underwent major surgery."

"The old master was the one who personally uncovered the anomalies in the hospital records from twenty-two years ago. He is the only reason the family looked for you."

"He begs to see you."

"He kept saying the Vance family owes you an explanation."

I paused, and eventually agreed to stay.

However, I flatly refused the guest room Eleanor had prepared. Instead, I picked an unused study on the top floor.

I personally replaced the deadbolt, set up a motion-activated wide-angle camera, and placed tamper-evident forensic tape along the doorframe and drawer seams.

At 11:40 PM that exact night, the silent alarm on my phone buzzed.

Through the live feed, I saw someone in a long white nightgown, wearing latex gloves, working a thin metal shim into my deadbolt.

She tried for two minutes and seventeen seconds.

When the lock failed to turn, she knelt down and probed the gap under the door.

I didn't open the door.

I simply recorded the footage, backed it up to two cloud servers, and logged the precise timestamps.

At breakfast the next morning, Chloe sat beside Eleanor, her eyes puffy from crying.

The moment I walked into the dining room, she shot up from her chair.

"Valerie, I am so sorry about yesterday."

"I swear I didn't mean to hurt you. I was just terrified of losing my family."

Eleanor couldn't help chiming in. "Valerie, Chloe stayed up crying all night."

"She's sincerely apologizing. Just give her another chance."

I unlocked my phone, placed it in the center of the marble table, and pressed play.

The crystal-clear footage of Chloe picking my lock filled the screen.

"At 11:40 PM last night, she wasn't reflecting on her actions," I stated calmly.

"She was attempting an unlawful breaking and entering into my room."

Eleanor turned ghost-white.

Chloe panicked, flailing her hands. "I—I just wanted to talk to you in private!"

"Do standard family conversations require professional lock-picking shims?"

"I knocked! You didn't answer!"

"So your instinct was to break in? Your family's communication style is remarkably invasive."

Ethan cut in defensively, his voice deep and tense. "Maybe she was worried you were going to hurt yourself in there!"

I turned my gaze slowly onto him.

"When she approached my door, she first used her sleeve to obscure the overhead hall sensor, and she wore gloves."

"That is textbook counter-surveillance behavior."

"Anyone genuinely concerned about another person's safety calls 911 or alerts the household staff immediately upon failure to gain entry."

"She did neither."

"Her sole objective was to enter without leaving trace evidence."

Ethan’s jaw clenched tight. "Do you really have to paint her as some kind of monster?!"